The Interrupted Dinner
by mysticxf
Summary: It should have been a normal night - a dinner with Clara and her father, except that the fog rolled in and brought something devious with it.
1. The Unexpected Fall

The Doctor was rapping his fingers against the cream colored linen on either side of his plate nervously, occasionally lifting a spoon or a fork to admire them, or fold and refold the napkin that now sat crumpled on his lap. His legs were a jumble of movement underneath the table and for a fleeting moment, it crossed his mind that he'd really rather like to be making his way through a Dalek army, or having another chess match with a Cyberman than be where he was.

Sitting in the Oswald household.

Waiting for dinner.

"Stop," came the quick and quiet command at his side and when he glanced over, he was getting a stern look from a set of dark eyes that darted between his own and his fingers. The Doctor gripped his hands into tight fists and made a face at her. "It was your idea," she reminded.

"It was an automatic response," he chided.

"You _automatically_ told my father you'd come for dinner?" She teased in a hiss.

He stared.

"Ah, ready then," Clara's father told them both with a wide grin as he entered the dining room with a pot between gloved hands and the Doctor watched his companion's face brighten as she straightened in her seat and admired the roast he revealed, setting it on the table between them. The man pulled his chair in as he sat and glanced up at the Doctor, who feigned delight instantly. "Hope you like roast."

He did, actually. "Yes, of course," he allowed.

Clara took a bowl of mashed potatoes and dropped a lump on her plate, offering it to the man at her right, who took it and smiled and she shook her head at him. _There will be no mashed potato formations at the table_, her look told him. _But I like mashed potato formations_, his look responded. _No_, came the unspoken response and he sighed, taking the bowl and scooping out a small amount.

Because he would make a snowman whether she liked it or not.

"So, Doctor..." her father started, trailing for the third time that night, hoping to gleam a name that never came, before he continued, "Clara says you travel."

Picking out a few slices of roast from the pot in front of him, he smiled awkwardly and then nodded, agreeing before looking to Clara, who was giving him a strange look, and he realized, "Ah, yes, elaboration of a sort would be appropriate," and he clamped his mouth shut as he shrugged and told him plainly, "I travel... about. Bit of a historian, I suppose – keeping track of time, things of that sort."

"And how did you meet my Clara?" Her father asked curiously.

Again, he looked up to see the woman who held a tight smile and the Doctor was tempted to tell him to ask his daughter if he was so keen, but instead he offered, "I helped her find the internet."

"It was lost," Clara said softly, looking up at the perplexed set of wrinkles set on her father's head.

The Doctor smiled as he shifted a few carrots and peas away from his mashed potatoes, receiving a swift kick underneath the table that shocked him, but he only looked up at the face that told him, _I said no_! And he sighed, turning his attention back to Mr. Oswald. "She was in a bit of a pickle with her wireless services; received a phone number from a woman at a shop who'd mistaken a help line for my number, mix up of digits, and..." the Doctor paused, considering the detail with a grin before finishing, "I helped her. Sort of a happy coincidence, I would say."

It was the truth.

And the man across from him laughed, serving himself before giving a shake of his head and telling him knowingly, "Has Clara ever told you how I met her mother?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor started with a surprised nod.

"Dad!" Clara gasped in shock.

The man smiled, looking between the two, raising a quick eyebrow before he settled on watching his daughter blush with embarrassment and the Doctor knew why – the man presumed him to be her boyfriend. Human tradition: meddle in the affairs of your children and then mock them mercilessly in front of their potential suitors, or mock their suitors. He was amused, watching Clara with a similar grin until he understood he should probably be feigning embarrassment himself, and he turned to his potatoes, working them into a set of lumps that earned him another small kick.

He pressed his lips together and looked up in slight frustration, but the emotion faded away when he saw the look on her face. It wasn't the potato shapes he'd been making, or the fact that her father was currently talking about coincidences and fate and something about growing trees. It was something behind him, just past the veiled window across the living room. Something out of the corner of his eye and he was almost afraid to turn around, but she was staring. She was concerned.

So he straightened, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rising in reaction to something unseen, and found himself looking out of a window to find a flurry of snowflakes. Unseasonable and thick in the air. And in the street stood an odd man. A man with black eyes that shone through a curtain of wispy white hair.

"Oh, what's so... Well, look at that – snow in August!"

The voice gave him a start, and he broke eye contact with the man outside, turning for a second to look at Clara's father, rising from the table and he jumped up, shouting quickly, "No!" that, surprisingly, Clara echoed.

The duo were both standing, napkins clenched in fists, looking at the man who smiled awkwardly and raised his hands and gave an odd nod before settling back into his seat. "Sorry, dad," Clara apologized, looking up to the Doctor before she dropped back into her chair, "Just, we should finish dinner. Right, Doctor?"

He shifted his jaw, staring out into the darkness and glanced back at Clara. Her expression was pained with the unspoken request – the one she knew very well would be impossible for him to accept – and she finally looked down at the table, the unnoticeable nod his permission to advance to the window.

"History is a strange thing," the Doctor called back at them. "Always happening around you. Quickly, quietly, sneaking along unsuspectingly, and one day it's there, looking forward as you glance back. But every once in a while you manage to stare it in the face – watch it unfold – and you should never miss those opportunities."

Dave was staring at him now, question lingering on his lips – _what the _hell_ are you going on about_ – and he glanced sideways at Clara, who pushed a carrot into her mouth, a clever way to avoid speaking, he knew. "It's snowing in August," he finally managed to declare with a half laugh, nervous in the stillness of the room. "And you're talking about history."

He turned, "Snowing in August; one day it'll be history."

Dave Oswald dropped his head slightly and declared, "Right now it's just snow in August."

"Exactly," the Doctor told him with a smile.

"I'm not sure I understand," he replied, glancing back at Clara, who was sighing.

"He has to go find out why," she answered.

"Why?" Dave asked lowly, "Meteorologist by night?"

Pointing a finger, the Doctor told him with a laugh, "I like that," then looked to Clara, "I do like him."

Dave raised his hands slightly and sighed, "I'm very confused."

Clara stood and set her napkin down, "Sorry, dad. I'm really sorry about…"

There came a loud bang against the roof, several in slow succession that rolled from single pelts into a loud fury like never-ending thunder and the Doctor turned back to the window to see the hail that was splintering over the pavement, denting the cars in the road. He could feel Clara coming to stand next to him, hand coming up to touch his elbow so he could glance down and see the unasked question:

_What _was_ going on_?

"I have no idea." He answered honestly, waiting and watching as the hail died down and the snow stopped and everything outside was black again.

"First snow, then hail?" Dave asked with a laugh. "Well you've certainly come on an interesting evening, Doctor…"

But the Doctor was already heading towards the front door, Clara just behind him. Dave sat in his chair a moment, hearing his front door open and then click gently shut and he looked out the window at his daughter. She was eagerly, and gingerly, stepping through the thin layer of snow in the front yard in her dainty purple floral dress, dark stockings, and wedged boots, bending slightly beside the man she'd suddenly come home with and Dave pressed a hand to his face. This was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever seen.

The chair moved back with an angry skid and he marched out the door to stand beside them, watching as the Doctor ran a device over the snow and whipped it up quickly to stare at it.

"What is that?" Dave asked.

"Sonic screwdriver; analyses things," the Doctor replied as Clara stared up at her father in shock, then he added, "Historical things."

"It's snow," Dave pointed gruffly.

"You're upset," the Doctor surmised. "Snow on your lawn. No. Not snow," he glanced at the man, sizing him up and looking back at the house. "Dinner," he gave his forehead a slap of his palm, "Interrupted dinner, always unpleasant, but," he gestured back, "Snow."

Planting his hands at his waist, Dave nodded, "Snow, it snowed. Hailed. Obviously some freak storm."

"What causes a freak storm?"

"And who was the man?" Clara asked suddenly.

"Man?" Dave repeated.

"Man on the lawn," the Doctor reported, "Man in the snow on the lawn, looking in on us."

"Looking at you," Clara realized.

"Possibly," he agreed.

"Well he wouldn't be looking at me or my dad," she frowned. "What'd we do?"

"Aside from cooking a meal that's going cold on the table," Dave interjected, watching them both turn to look at him before he smiled, "That's right. Still here." Clara's face scrunched as if he'd yelled. "And if there's a freak storm and a freak man wandering about, wouldn't it be prudent we go back inside?"

"Yes," the Doctor spat quickly, hand coming up to push Clara into her father, back towards the house.

"Doctor!" She argued, turning to slap his hand away, but he caught it, head gesturing towards the street at her left and she slowly looked out over the night, seeing the odd glow approaching. An army of what looked like white haired adolescent boys were marching through the milky fog that was thickening the air.

"What the hell…" Dave started.

"Inside the house," the Doctor ordered.

"_Who_ are they?" Dave asked.

"_What_ are they?" Clara countered.

"_Inside the house_!"


	2. The Boys in the Fog

Shutting the door behind them, the Doctor turned the lock. A single lock. A single lock for a house this size with valuable things in it, he thought to himself, looking to Dave as though he were foolish. How could you raise a child in a house with one lock on the door? Didn't her foresee the dangers she might encounter that might require an extra dead bolt? The question went unspoken, but Clara understood what he was thinking and she moved back into the dining room to drag a chair and settle it underneath the handle, wedging it against the ground roughly.

"Oi, you'll scratch the wood!" Dave shouted as the Doctor headed towards the back of the house to secure the door there in a similar manner before coming back to look out the dining room window.

"Good thinking, let's not scratch the _wood_!" Clara shouted back, surprising them both before she lowered her eyes and sighed, "Sorry, dad, it's just, if they try to get in – anything we could to do block it…"

He raised a hand and shook his head, then said quietly, "I'm getting an odd feeling that you two know more about what's going on than I care to know, so someone start talking."

The Doctor looked to Clara and she knew that he wouldn't be the one explaining who he was.

"We do this bit a lot," Clara admitted and her father glanced up at her with wide eyes. "He's not really a historian, not by profession anyways. He's a Time Lord."

"What sort of royalty is that?" Dave asked curiously.

"Not royalty," Clara shrugged, "Least I don't think it is," she added, watching the Doctor moving up the stairs to check on the windows. "He's an alien, from some planet called Gallifrey."

She expected him to think her mad. To pitch a fit and demand the truth, but instead, he asked calmly, "I've never heard of a Gallifrey, is it in our solar system?"

"No," the Doctor supplied as he skipped down the stairs, "Not even close."

"So, he's an alien," Dave pointed.

Clara nodded and the Doctor stopped to stand next to her and ask him with narrowed eyes, "Are you ok with that?"

And much like his daughter had done, months ago, he simply nodded and answered, "Yeah, I s'pose so."

With a smile of both amusement and something like pride, the Doctor clapped his hands together and moved into the living room, watching the fog that rolled over the Oswald lawn and began to eat at the visibility in front of them until it was all white swirls and waves. He scanned into the cloud and lifted his Sonic to eye level, jaw clenching slightly as Clara came to his side, pressing her hands to the window and leaning her face into them to try and peer out.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Mostly a distortion of the atmosphere – probably happened when they entered it from space, but there's also some sort of low level telepathic field. They're searching for something."

"What are they searching for?" Dave asked as he moved passed the Doctor and pulled Clara away from the window, to her frustration.

Always protect your children, the Doctor knew. Even when they were old enough to take care of themselves. "Not sure," he allowed. "I'd have to go out and talk to them."

"But they were looking at you," Clara reminded, "What if they're searching for you?"

"What if they are?" He postulated, "And others get hurt while I'm standing in here?"

"You can't just give yourself up – you don't even know what they are!"

Dave was nodding in agreement next to Clara.

He stepped up to Clara, hand landing on her shoulder, and told her quietly, "No, I don't," and then he moved to the window and knocked several times, shouting, "Hello out there!"

"Is he mad?" Dave hissed.

Clara turned and told him quietly, "No, he's communicating!"

"We don't even know what's out there!" Dave pointed.

And out of the fog a set of three faces began to break through, stepping towards the window to stare at the man who was looking at them. They were youthful and pale and their lips remained a thin sliver that broke the starkness of their skin. Clara moved to stand closer to the Doctor, but her father held her in place and they watched as the three faces looked in their direction. Without speaking, there came an odd whisper and the coolness of words working into their minds.

"_Silly little man with his silly little thoughts; worried for the daughter, worry, worry lots_."

"Why would they say that?" Dave shouted. "Why would they say that!?"

The Doctor turned, gripping the man by both shoulders as the boys tilted their heads behind him in the window, observing, and he urged, "Dave, I need you to calm down. They're patronizing you on purpose. To gain a response and if you give it to them, then they'll have succeeded. Do you understand?"

Shrugging out of his grip, Dave demanded, "What would they gain? What are they trying to gain, Doctor?"

He turned back to the window to look at the smiles creeping onto the faces disappearing back into the fog and he scowled angrily at them. "I don't know," he admitted. He moved to the window and knocked. "Hello, I am the Doctor and I am requesting your attention."

They watched the fog as it drifted about with the wind and he shifted on his heel to walk towards the front door when Clara caught his arm, "Don't go outside," she told him quickly.

"Clara, I have to go outside to see what they want."

"Don't go outside," she repeated, swallowing hard. She felt as though there were an ice hand gripping her heart and she didn't dare let go until the determination melted from his features and he turned to touch her face gently, sweeping her cheek with his thumb and closing his eyes in defeat – for the moment.

He went to settle himself on the couch in the living room, turning to look out into the fog before raising a finger, "Dave, am I right to assume you've got friends on this block? Friends of any sort, here, next neighborhood, next city?"

Dave took a step closer and nodded.

"Ring them, ask them if this is happening where they are – ask specifically, if the strangers are communicating with them and, specifically, write down for me what they're saying."

He listened to the footsteps move towards the kitchen as Clara sat at the edge of the sofa and plucked the remote from the coffee table that sat between themselves and the television. She clicked it on and they watched the static blink in and out as she changed channels and Clara found herself lifting her fingers to the corners of her eyes to remove tears she didn't want her father seeing.

"Brave for everyone," the Doctor lamented.

She turned, "Sorry?"

He took her hand and turned it over, touching the wet surface of her forefinger sadly. "They've interrupted the satellites. Your father won't be able to make a call from his mobile," he told her.

She stood, "Old fashioned, still got a land line," and went into the kitchen to find him tapping his cellular phone against his palm while cradling the old hand set between his ear and his shoulder, nodding. "Dad?"

"Yeah Sean, just keep the boys inside. Keep 'em occupied with a game – yeah, the old kind with cards and plastic bits. I know they'll complain. Well, knock 'em with a book if they're on about it!" He sighed, covering the mouth piece to tell her, "Your uncle says it's same where he's at, tele's out, and your cousins won't play their bleedin' games until you come over and tell 'em it's alright."

Clara took the phone and sighed, "Uncle Sean, put Billy on the phone. _Just do it_!" She waited. "Hey!" Clara smiled and wrapped the cord around her finger the way she used to as a child on phone calls with school mates. "No, Billy, everything's fine. It's just a storm. Storm so big the satellites in space are blocked is all." Clara jammed her eyes shut and sighed, "It's not aliens. I know about Christmas. Yes, that one too. _And that one_. But this time, it's not aliens, I promise you." She eyed the Doctor, stepping inside, "No, it's not like that either. It's just a storm and, d'you remember when we went to the mall and those boys were being mean to… yes. Those boys, it's just them." Clara pressed a hand to her forehead, "Because I can't see in the fog."

"Cousins," Dave told the Doctor. "Won't trust their parents."

"But they trust Clara," he judged with a laugh. "And she's lying to them. What will that teach them when they discover the truth?"

Dave lowered his eyes and Clara seemed hurt by the comment.

Of course she had to lie to them. Just this once. "Headphones still work? Fantastic. Remember the book I told you to read? Yeah, Williams. Summer… yeah. Just listen to some music and read it over because I expect to phone you later to ask your opinion." She smiled lightly and when she spoke next, her voice broke as she met the Doctor's eyes, "Yeah, love you too. Talk to you soon."

He watched as she pressed a finger onto the phone to disconnect the call and dialed the Maitland's. Dave and the Doctor listened as she went through a similar conversation with whom the Doctor presumed was Artie, and then have a short argument with Angie, before she closed her eyes and told the girl she'd see her later that night. She expected them both to have their homework done and she expected them both in bed without a fuss. She smiled, weakly, and told the girl, "It'll be fine, Ang," before abruptly going silent, and he could see it in the look on her face that the girl had hung up on her.

Dropping the phone onto the receiver hanging on the wall, she looked up at him as he told her, "I'm sorry, but they'll forgive you – one day, one day they'll understand."

"I don't like lying to children," she told him bluntly, then looked out to the white window and asked, "And I don't like you lying to me as though I'm a child – what are they?"

The Doctor scratched at the back of his head and dropped his hand heavily against his thigh, "Obviously sentient; currently passive…"

"Passive?" Dave asked, "I can't leave the house!"

Looking to Clara, he got the knowing shake of the head before telling her, "If I don't step outside, how long do you suppose before Billy does, or Sean and Patricia, or Henry – that's the younger one, am I correct? I know you told me once…" he sighed when she looked to the ground. "Clara, I have to go outside."

She breathed deeply and raised her head to give him a tight-lipped smile, "One step. Should be enough."

He laughed to himself, "Would you like to tie a rope around my waist? Pull me back in if things get treacherous?" And then he told the look on her face with a scowl, "No, you won't."

Rolling her eyes, Clara went into the next room and she moved to the front door, lifting the chair and dragging it back, watching as the Doctor pulled his Sonic. He turned the lock and with a glance and a nod back at her, he stepped into the fog.


	3. The Ghostly Thoughts

The fog was colder than he expected. He wasn't sure why he didn't assume it would be, with the snow and the hail, but it was frigid. So much so that he found himself shaking slightly and that unnerved him because it distracted him from what he knew was around him. He tried to focus his mind, but found it swimming, cold tendrils wrapping themselves around his every thought, catching him off guard, and he knew it was the telepathic field. Breathing in the fog invited it in and there was little he could do except lock away his deepest secrets and concentrate on the task at hand.

Swiping the Sonic through the milky air, he tried to read it, but found himself narrowing his eyes in frustration. The snow crunched around him quickly, as though they were darting about, and his head whipped from side to side, trying to focus in on one set of footsteps – one being with which he could communicate. Of course it was impossible; he could barely see his hand in front of his face, much less the shadows now giggling a few feet away.

"Who are you?" He called firmly, listening to the silence.

"_The Doctor comes to ask our name, whatever shall he find; he'll see that it was all in vain, we're all inside the mind."_

They skip past him, and he reaches out to grab hold of one, but is left watching the air swirl just in front of him as he prompts, "Who's mind, _please_, explain to me what it is you're looking for – I might be able to _help_ you."

_"We seek a game, a child to play; we'll leave at dawn, the first sun's ray."_

He chews the inside of his mouth a moment and then sighs, fighting the frustration. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows he should know who they are – he should know how to stop them, or at least confront them without feeling confounded. With a gasp, he turns quickly as they rush towards him and burst past, their movements more deliberate, their hands fluttering over his in cool slaps before disappearing into the fog.

And he smiles. "You'd like a game, why not play with me?"

_"The man is old, older than dust; go back inside, you must, you must!"_

The hands push at his back and he gives a shout and when he looks to them, their faces are suddenly charred black at the eyes and their gaping mouths reveal hungry teeth that clench together as they stare at him in anger. The Doctor runs in the direction they're pushing and he collides with the Oswald's front door, feeling it thrust out against him before a hand clutches him by his shirt and yanks him inside and he wrestles with them a moment before realizing it's just Clara.

Landing his hands against her arms, he pinches his eyes shut and tries to shake the odd burning sensation in his mind – as though they'd latched themselves there to speak to him and now they were slipping out, slowly, crawling back over his brain until they were gone, leaving a warmth that made him dizzy. The door was slammed shut and he could hear the chair being pushed underneath as Clara led him back to the sofa and dropped him into it with a noise of concern.

"What happened?" Dave asked quickly as he stood next to the couch.

"They're in our minds, the fog – slipping underneath the doorway – just enough to communicate," he told them, hands rubbing at his face after he pocketed the Sonic and looked up to Dave, "You asked earlier why they'd say that, what did they say to you?"

"You didn't hear?" The man asked, gesturing towards the window.

Clara looked between them, "You hadn't heard?" She asked the Doctor. "I thought you had heard."

"_You_ heard it," he questioned curiously, watching as she nodded, throat constricting in a nervous swallow.

"They said he has silly thoughts; that he worries about me," she told him honestly, looking up at her father to watch the blood drain from his face at the mere thought of what they could mean.

"And outside," the Doctor asked, "Just now, did you hear them then?"

She nodded slowly, eyes narrowing at him, "They said they were in our minds and would be gone by morning with what they wanted – a child to play some game, and that you were too old." And she wanted to make some joke about him and his childishness, but it remained locked away in her mind, too afraid to emerge.

He stared at her, and when he looked away, she could read the worry there, just under the half smile he gave his legs as he composed himself to turn back up to them. "Then we just have to wait until sunrise," he told them, hand coming up to pat Clara on the knee and she was aware when the touch lingered and he stared at his fingers, settled on her black tights as his thumb stroked the side of her knee absently. Some part of her thought it somewhat inappropriate, even more so in front of her father, but again, she knew there was something he wasn't telling her.

Something that was worrying him.

And it frightened her.

Dave began to pace the room, glancing at the window before he finally announced, "I'm making a spot of tea, calm the nerves, Doctor?"

"Yes, lovely," he responded quietly with a nod.

"And get your hand _off_ my daughter," he shot with a point of his finger, muttering under his breath as he went into the other room.

Hand lifting slightly, he clenched his fingers together and brought it against his other palm over his stomach before looking towards the kitchen and then up at her as she stared down at him. She was waiting for her father to be out of earshot, he knew, and his stomach turned uncomfortably because he knew what was on her mind – he always knew.

"What is it?" She asked, "And don't give me some lie to make me feel safe because right now? I don't feel safe. I feel very, very scared, and my dad's scared," she paused, voice lowering, "He hates to make tea, so he's in there doing it so that he can have something to occupy his mind that he hates more than you right now."

"Hates me?" He squeaked silently, gesturing to himself and backing away.

Clara hissed at him swiftly, "You've come to dinner, _first time he meets you_, and suddenly the sky's gone white, there are demon children on the lawn, we're trapped inside, and you're _practically fondling_ me in front of him. _What's a father to think_? Be glad he's not _taking blows at you_."

The Doctor scoffed, "He couldn't possibly be blaming me for all of this," he inched away from her, "And I was certainly not _fondling_."

"You were _overstepping_," she informed him with an arched eyebrow.

"You weren't exactly _stopping_ me," he accused in a fluster.

"I…" she trailed, then shook her head, "What aren't you telling me because you don't want him to hear, or are you simply not telling me because you don't want to tell me?"

He glanced sideways at the window, "Whatever they are, they work off a telepathic field, so the things that they say aren't being heard by everyone, but you've heard what I couldn't and you've heard what he didn't," he stopped her question with a rise of his fingers, "So that leaves two options: Either you are incredibly perceptive to the field and are therefore able to hear the thoughts they're delivering to both your father and myself, or you're _quite possibly_ one of children they are appealing to for their _games_."

Clara laughed lightly and told him quickly, "But I'm not a child, how could I be; not in so long, don't patronize me."

His lips turned up to smile, but stopped as he stared at her as she grinned nervously, standing and going into the kitchen to help her father. The Doctor swallowed hard and leaned forward on the couch, turning and walking to the window to watch the small faces that approached, staring up at him as he considered them. They peered in as he removed the Sonic from his jacket pocket again and scanned them, reading them as something he'd never come across, and grunting in frustration.

"What do you want with her?" He asked in a low voice.

They only stared.

"What was that?" Clara called from the other room.

"Talking to myself, you know…" he turned slightly to reply before shifting his attention back to the boys. "What game are you playing?" The Doctor demanded roughly, but they didn't answer him, they gave him quick dark grins and continued to stare.

In the kitchen, Clara brought cups down as the kettle whistled and she smiled at her father, "You know they've invented machines that make this much easier."

"I don't like this _Doctor_," Dave told her bluntly. "I mean what's his name? Doctor _who_, exactly?"

With a sigh, she set the three cups down and dropped a tea bag into each, watching her father pouring the steaming water into them as he got lost in his own thoughts. Which, she knew, was a very dangerous thing for an Oswald to do. Leaning against the counter next to him, she smiled up at him and waited, watching his eyes dart over the cups that he worked on, dropping sugar and trickling milk into his own and making a tray for Clara and the Doctor to fix their own the way they'd like.

"Dad," she said calmly.

He glanced down at her and the frown that made his normally youthful face age drastically, slipped upwards into a grin before he shook his head and admitted, "Sorry, it's just, you're my little girl, out there in the world with him and it seems like he's more at ease with the monsters outside than the dinner on the table and that's just… that's not ordinary."

"And who _prefers_ ordinary," she responded.

"So like your mum sometimes." Dave smiled absently, mind drifting to the woman Clara knew still held his heart, even after all the years since her death.

"Always," she agreed with a nod of her head as she straightened.

Dave looked his daughter over and sighed down at the tea, "Not a little girl anymore, are you."

"Haven't been in quite some time," she reminded.

He glanced at the entrance to the kitchen, lifting the tray and then told Clara honestly, "Don't care how old you get, you'll always be that little girl to me and this bloke – this bloke seems like trouble."

"Oh, he is, with a capital T," she responded wryly, and smiled, "Dad, I know you're just lookin' out for me, but I wouldn't travel with him if I didn't trust him."

And the tray dropped a notch as he asked, "So you travel… _with him_?"

Eyes widening a moment, Clara inhaled and realized she hadn't actually told him that bit yet. "Yeah, here and there, nothing too… _far away_," she lied.

"You got that same look in your eye, Clara – same one he gets when he's talking," Dave frowned. "When did _my_ _little girl_ learn to lie and keep secrets from her dad?"

He side-stepped Clara to enter the living room and she listened to the voice that grumbled at the Doctor to come get his tea. Hand coming up to rub at her head, she pushed away from the counter and made her way passed the dining room table and found herself glancing up at a cold presence just inside the door and gasped when she saw the ghostly boy looking back at her.


	4. Crashing the Oswald

Clara gripped the back of the nearest chair at the dining room table and she stared at the boy. He stood, clearly, just inside the door, as if frozen to the spot. His bare feet, jutting out from his tattered white pants, were planted comfortably against the circular burgundy and brown rug, and his hands rested against his thighs calmly. He seemed dusted in powder, bits sparkling slightly in the light from the stairway, and Clara blinked, thinking maybe he was some hallucination, but he was still there.

"Clara?"

It was the Doctor's voice and she could feel him coming towards her, but she couldn't move and she couldn't take her eyes off the boy. His snowy tunic top hung loosely against his body as did his hair, which fluttered on an unseen breeze over his face in wisps through which she could make out the features of his face. Unlike the creatures they'd been able to see through the window, there was no fog here to mask the thin lips and small nose, nor the sad dark eyes set into the frosty face that watched her.

She got the sinking feeling that he was boring a hole into her mind and there was nothing she could do about it as she watched the lips perk slightly. It knew what she was thinking and it took pleasure in her terror as she stood fixed to the spot, hand tightening on the chair until her knuckles went white. Her vision focused on his eyes, darkening and widening on his face and she wanted nothing more than to look away, but she couldn't. She couldn't move.

"Clara?"

The Doctor touched her free hand, hanging limply at her side, and it burned. Shouting, Clara pulled away from him to bring her aching palm to her chest before examining it, finding it perfectly fine and the man in front of her wrought with concern. Clara looked back up at the boy, still there, still watching her, but she averted her eyes before he could make any sort of connection again.

She pointed instead, demanding, "Don't you see him?"

Turning to look towards the door, the Doctor eyed the space, but looked back with a frown and a shake of his head, "What do you see, Clara?"

"What's she seeing?" Dave asked in a hushed whisper, his own fear over what was occurring caught in his throat as he moved behind the Doctor to look at his daughter, who stood, perplexed, eyes darting between them and the unseen thing near the door.

"There's a boy, one of the boys from outside!" She shouted, "_Just look at him_!"

"Clara, there's nothing there," the Doctor told her slowly.

Head tilting, Clara eyed him, and he could see the rise and fall of her chest quickening as she repeated, "One of the boys from outside is standing just inside the door. Look at him."

"There's nothing there, sweetheart," Dave assured, glancing sideways at the spot before moving to it.

"DAD, NO!" Clara jumped forward and the Doctor caught her, allowing Dave to walk to the landing and Clara watched as the boy stepped back, allowing the man to walk through the spot he'd been standing before Dave approached them, and the boy took a step forward, head lifting up to grin at her, amused.

Dave tried to laugh, but he could feel the panic in his heart, watching her eyes go wide as he returned and she pulled herself out of the Doctor's grip to latch onto her father, holding him tightly. "Clara, there's nothing there," he told her quietly, one hand rubbing at her back, the other smoothing her hair a moment before he shifted back, hands at either side of her face, "It's nothing."

She closed her eyes and the Doctor looked back at the spot. "Either you're actually here," he told the spot, "Or you're playing inside her mind. Which is it?"

"_The Doctor tries, he tries to save, the girl that he adores; the Doctor lies, he lies to Dave, the man that he abhors_."

Dave glanced up at him, "What's _that_ mean?"

"What'd you hear?" he snaps back.

"You know _bloody well_ what I heard," Dave spat.

"So now you're communicating with us all," the Doctor called, approaching the window to see the young faces slip into view.

"What did you hear?" Clara asked.

"Ah," the Doctor pointed back at her, "Left the child out of the game this time, or is this the game?"

"Doctor, you're frightening me," Clara cried, "What did they say?"

Dave moved with her towards the couch, where he forced her to sit with him before turning to look at the Doctor to ask, "They're playing at a game, what sort of game?"

"A game that sets us at odds against one another; a game that ultimately ends with us taking our minds off the thing that's truly important because they need us to be distracted. They need to distract us to get to Clara," he looked to her, sitting on the couch, passing a glance over her shoulder before shutting her eyes against what she sees there. "He's real, as real as you let him be," he explained, "If you don't want him to be there, he'll vanish."

"_He thinks he knows, he thinks he wins, the Doctor and his dame; He thinks he plays, he thinks and thinks, and thinks he'll win this game_."

Planting his hands against his waist, he approaches the window and smiles down at them. "And why wouldn't I, huh? You're just children, working off the frailty of human minds and guess what, I'm not…"

"_The Doctor comes from far away; He comes, _no runs_, from Gallifrey_."

The boys raised their hands and begin knocking. Quietly at first, barely a tap, but they knock together and they knock the same each time. Sets of fours with smiles growing as the knocking became louder and the Doctor turned when he heard the soft set of pats coming from his companion, seated on the couch. Her fingers pet her knees in the same pattern and she looked down at her hands and then back up at him as the first tear stung her cheek. He moved to her, dropping to his knees in front of her to take hold of her hands.

"Clara, they're inside your mind – you need to push them out," he urged.

"I can't," she replied and she shut her eyes, feeling a dull pain developing just behind them. The more she wanted them out of her head, the more it hurt. She could feel the Doctor taking hold of her hands, squeezing them as they continued to try to knock out that beat against his skin and she dropped her head down, landing on his shoulder with a grunt as the pain in her mind scored out like knives.

"Clara, think of something else," Dave told her suddenly. "Think of mum," he suggested with a wide smile, "Remember when we'd go for walks? We'd go down to the park and you'd play on the swings because you loved the swings – do you remember?" And he glanced up at the man knelt in front of his daughter with a sudden remembrance that sobered him.

She nodded against the material under her forehead.

Dave smiled, diverting his attention back to Clara, curling his fingers over her shoulder in a comforting squeeze, "Think of your mum."

The Doctor felt her hands, rigid and forceful, start to go limp and when she lifted her head, she nodded slowly at him before falling sideways into her father, who gripped her in a tight hug as she lay there, exhausted from the effort. Standing, the Doctor marched to the front door and ripped through it before anyone could stop him and when he went out into the cold this time, he felt nothing but the rage that burned inside of him. He knew that whatever they were doing to Clara, they were probably doing to children across the neighborhood, across the country – across the planet for all he knew, and the notion of children being manipulated in that manor…

Raising his arms, he shouted, "Come on, then! Come get me."

"_Go back inside, like all the rest; go run and hide, you do that best_."

Shaking his head, the Doctor bellowed, "No!"

And he felt the angry pushes of small hands against his midsection. The boys were pushing him away and he questioned it – why wouldn't they want him out in the fog? Does it weaken them? Does it distract them? Does it create confusion? Exhaustive efforts to communicate? What was it? He didn't care, it was something they didn't like and he clenched his jaw in satisfaction.

He slipped aside swiftly and the boys fell into the fog with small noises of surprise and they disappeared in the substance as he raised the Sonic to search again. "Telepathic field," he repeated to himself, "How many entities?" The results surprised him. "Where do the boys come from? Why boys at all? Are the projections different for each subject you're trying to procure? And why Clara? She's not a child." He glanced up into the clouds of thick smoke and commanded, "_What are you_?"

"_The questions come and then they go, we'll take them from your mind; you needn't question our motives so, won't like what you will find_."

Something like feathers tickled his head, and despite what he knew was happening, he found he was delighted that it was and he let out a small chuckle as the memories of their conversation fluttered away with a small breeze across his brow. The Doctor pocketed his Sonic and straightened his bow tie, adjusting his jacket before turning with a grin and a laugh and he headed towards the Oswald's front door. Except that something was nagging him, just at the corner of his mind. Some question, some small voice. Some small familiar voice.

Clara's voice.

"_Don't you wonder, who, and sigh; don't you question, me, and why_?"

He stumbled, shaking his head at the strength with which her words had stung him and he turned back to the fog with a scowl. "You're a trickster," he announced, knowing he had to be more careful. Less assuming. "They're not children, not really – just psychic tethers reaching out into the universe for something to latch onto to, or lash out against."

"_The Doctor_…"

"No! I. Am. Talking!" He roared. "You'll leave this place. You'll leave Clara. You'll leave anyone else you've stabbed your tendrils into and you'll run away."

"_The Doctor_…"

He twisted his Sonic in his hands and then raised it up, blasting a pulse of energy through the cloud and he listened as it shrieked. Or at least he thought it had shrieked. As he stood there, listening, he realized that the sound wasn't coming from the sky above him – whatever entity floated above them all causing the fog and the boys – it was coming from the houses around him.

They were people screaming.

_Children_.

And a woman just inside the house behind him begging, "_Doctor, please_!"


	5. The Sleeping Child

Lowering his Sonic, he rushed towards the house and burst through the door to find Dave Oswald cradling his daughter on the ground between the window and the coffee table. Her hands were gripping the sides of her head and she was curled up tightly, wincing and whimpering, and Dave turned up as he approached. He could read the anger on his face, but the Doctor stared down in Clara, her face barely visible behind the mess of hair, in confusion.

"Shut the bleedin' door!" Dave called roughly.

"What happened?" The Doctor asked in a rasped voice as he moved to shut and lock the door, jamming the chair underneath the handle despite the fact that he knew it was pointless. He knew that the particles in the fog creating the field were small enough to slip underneath the door to penetrate the air inside the house – and their minds. It was how they were communicating with them.

"She said you shouldn't be out there; said they were making you forget. Planted a hand on the window and went into some sort of trance and then she fell out of it, screaming like someone had boxed her head in." Dave spoke calmly, but the Doctor could hear the fury in his words. And the blame.

He knelt across from him and uttered, "I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry."

Shifting a hand up to sweep the hair from her face, he was quickly knocked back with a shove by the man who stared furiously at him. "I'm sure you are," Dave muttered, turning Clara over in his lap. She'd calmed, but her eyes hadn't opened and the Doctor stared in defeat before standing and looking away.

"Why _her_?" He considered as he stared out at the boys now in the window again, looking down at her on the ground before he moved to stand between them, blocking their view of her. Their eyes lifted slowly to his. "_Why her_?!"

"Maybe it's not _her_! Maybe it's _you_, Doctor – you're the alien, y'ever consider they're using her against you?" Dave posited as he lifted Clara off the ground and moved her to the couch.

He turned to look at the man with a smile of appreciation before shaking his head, "It's not that, it's got nothing to do with me. To them I'm merely the distraction, the thing taking their mind away from their purpose."

"And what is their purpose?" Dave questioned.

He gestured with a hand towards Clara, "The children."

Dave shook his head as he shifted one of the couch pillows under Clara's head. She'd drifted to sleep, or, the Doctor knew, into a sort of coma. "So what's happened to her?"

"They want her unconscious; it'll be harder to fight."

"Fight what?"

"Them," he spat, then glanced up, "Dave, call your brother, inquire about your nephews."

Dave's eyes snapped up quickly as he stood, "You don't think they'd…"

"They're here for children, and if this is affecting where your brother lives, then it's only fair to assume the same is happening there," he allowed, watching as Dave rushed towards the kitchen to yank the phone off its cradle before punching the numbers.

"_Oh, he tries to understand the reasons for the ploy; he walks about, his thoughts on her, the pretty little toy. And when she wakes, he'll try to calm the notions in her mind; that she's, in fact, no longer with the ones who are her kind_."

Considering the eyes that waited, the Doctor called softly, "So tell me then what is it that, she has unlike the rest; tell me boys out in the fog, what makes this choice the best?"

They giggle at his words.

Mouths slipping open and hands coming up slightly so their pale fingers cover their lips, they laugh amongst each other in amusement before slipping back into the fog. The Doctor banged once the window in anger and turned when he heard her murmur behind him and he fell at her side, hand taking hers as he looked over her face and watched her brow furrow slightly.

"Whatever game they're playing at, Clara, you fight them," he whispered, smoothing her hair away from her face as Dave cleared his throat from the kitchen. Looking up, the Doctor recognized the look on his face, he'd seen it before on his companion – an unfathomable dread kept just under the surface. "They're the same, aren't they," he stated, standing to follow Dave into the kitchen.

"Sean, I'm gonna give you over to the Doctor. Yeah, I suppose – he's got the right parts…" the man looked him over with a sigh of frustration, "And he's a friend," he ended glumly, handing the phone to him.

Taking the object as Dave stepped away, arms crossing at his chest as he bit his thumb in a way that had become familiar to him travelling with Clara, the Doctor listened to the absolute silence on the line for a moment before asking, "What happened?"

In a deluge of words, the man described the snow and the hail and then the fog rolling over, at precisely the same time as it had happened for them. Then the communications. "They talked to me, then to Patricia, and the boys found it amusing – they wanted to go outside to play with the things they saw…" They'd stopped them, of course, and they'd barricaded the door. And they too had seen them just inside the door, trying to urge them to play. The Doctor pressed a palm to his face as he listened to the man describing their screams before they'd dropped, unconscious on the living room floor.

"Keep an eye on them, if they wake – whatever you do – don't let them get outside."

"That's it, Doctor?" Came the question and he looked to Dave as he dropped his hands at his sides and clenched them tightly and he felt his stomach become a bottomless pit of anxiety because he didn't know and he couldn't lie. He couldn't console the parents on the line any more than the man in front of him. And this was _her family_.

"Just keep them safe."

"What of Clara, Doctor?" And then the inevitable follow up, "If they've gotten to her, couldn't they simply subdue us all?"

"I don't think they want the parents, maybe they can't…" he told the other man solemnly, "If there's a change, you call Dave and you let him know."

The line went dead and he let the phone fall limp in his hands before settling it down atop the receiver hooked to the wall. Eyes coming up to meet Dave's, he sighed and shook his head. Dave took two steps towards him and he knew well the wrath the man felt, waited for the hands to take hold of his jacket at either side of his chest and awaited the slam against the doorframe into the dining room… but it never came.

Instead, Dave asked him calmly, "What can we do, Doctor?"

"I'm not sure," he replied.

"How do we wake them?" He pointed into the living room, "How can I wake Clara?"

Furrowing his brow, he turned and asked curiously, "Why would they want her, they spoke of the children. Wanting the children for a game."

Dave stepped back, and the Doctor watched as he turned a light shade of green before rambling, "Oh, goodness me, that's what this dinner was. You agreed to a dinner, to a formal meeting. She's been travelling with you Lord knows where or how long, hadn't seen her in a… she's pregnant, isn't she… she's got a child..."

"No," the Doctor told him firmly in shock before repeating, "No! No, not like that at all." He glanced back at Clara and then at Dave and sputtered, "It's not a snog box and it most certainly hasn't become a… no."

He watched the relief color Dave's face and he gave a half smile. "So you don't…"

"No, we haven't – we don't, won't, don't know, ma… no."

"Because I thought," he shook his head.

"No, Clara and I, we travel. _Strictly travelling_."

Dave stared at him a moment and then laughed and the Doctor reciprocated, an odd chuckle that cracked with nerves before the other man looked into the living room, "Then why her?"

"Do you still see her as a child, Dave?" The Doctor asked with interest.

"What?"

He looked at the man, "Clara, do you still consider her a child," he repeated, turning to look at Dave, "You still think her a child – they have no concept of age." He slapped a palm to his forehead and told him bluntly, "Dave, you have to let her go."

"What?"

He gestured towards the living room, "They're reading your thoughts and off your thoughts they've surmised that Clara must be a child and they've rounded her up with the rest. If you've got any chance of them releasing her, you have to let them know she's an adult." He turned and looked to the boys in the window who were watching Clara sleep, "Tell them she's no child."

"But she is a child. Twenty four, Doctor, barely old eno..."

Stopping him with a hand to his shoulder, the Doctor laughed, "Dave, I can assure you, she is no child."

The man's eyes reddened, "She's my little girl."

"She's your grown daughter. She's seen worlds beyond this one, faced unimaginable evil with a flare that would terrify battle-worn men, has lead in combat against an army of metal soldiers, and has managed to fluster an emperor. You need to _acknowledge_ that; you need to know that she's magnificent and wise and _grown_."

He shifted out of the man's grip and began to move towards the window, but as he approached, Clara's eyes fluttered open and she adjusted herself on the couch, sitting up and blinking blankly at the space in front of her. Dave dropped into the cushion beside her and he laughed, trying to pull her into a hug, but she pushed him away, eyes drifting up towards the man entering the living room space with curious caution.

"Clara?" The Doctor asked.

"Yes, it's me; I'm fine."

"What happened?" He continued, raising a hand slightly towards Dave, who looked up at him incredulously as he motioned for him to stand.

She shrugged her shoulders and told him bluntly, "Got mind-napped by the smog boys, no thanks to you."

"What's the name of the first planet we visited?"

Clara dropped her head slightly, "Honestly, Doctor, what's the twenty questions. I've got a bit of a headache, could you fetch some aspirin and water?" She turned to look at her father, "Dad?"

"Name it, Clara." The Doctor pressed.

"Akhaten, we sang; rode a space bike – I saved your life, if I recall." She looked from her father to the Doctor and back again and asked, "What's this about?"

"I have to be sure it's you," the Doctor assured, glancing at the boys who were watching her as well.

She laughed, "Be sure it's me?" Then she spat, "How can I be sure it's you? We've played this game before, haven't we, Doctor?"

He managed a grin, "And if you ask me to hit you..."

"I expect you to," she teased.

Relaxing slightly, he nodded to Dave. "A word?"

"Doctor?" Clara questioned.

He raised a hand to Dave, waiting until the man stood and followed him into the kitchen before telling him bluntly, "I'm not quite sure it's Clara."

"But it's her, you heard her – passing quips with you, I assume that's normal. Seemed fairly natural."

"Yes, but, they're still there... in her mind. Watching."

Dave cocked his head and hissed, "How do you know?"

Turning, he gestured at the three boys in the window, watching as Clara stood and began to pace in the space between the living room and dining room and he uttered, "Because, like you, Dave, _they_ haven't let go."


	6. The Silent Tether

Dave stood on the phone in the kitchen as the Doctor took a seat at the dining room table, watching Clara as she fiddled with her fingers in her lap while she sighed and examined the items on the coffee table in front of her. No longer glancing back at the door, nor looking to the boys in the window staring back at her. He listened to the man who asked whether the boys had awoken and he understood by the solemn silence that they hadn't. And then Dave's voice dropped and he began to whisper about his own daughter – admitting that Clara had also been affected.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor asked her.

She smiled, turning to look at him before rising from the couch and coming to pull away the seat across from him, hands landing flat against the table as she sat and leaned closer, uttering a quick and amused, "For the fourth time, I'm fine."

"What happened, tell me what you saw," he pressed delicately.

She considered the question, eyes fluttering over the table cloth beneath her fingers before glancing up at him and telling him quietly, "Just, nothing really – like I'd gone to sleep. And there was nothing, just silence."

With a nod, he told her, "But when you sleep, you dream."

"There was no dream…" she trailed, eyes watering slightly, "There was nothing."

He leaned away, seeing her mind working over it, as though she were trying to recall something, but it wasn't there for her to pull out of her memory. "Can you still see the boy by the door?"

"No," she told him.

"You haven't looked," he pointed out.

Clara shifted in her seat and glanced out of the corner of her eye before shaking her head, "No, he's not there," she told him and the Doctor stared hard at the spot. "There's really nothing to be concerned about, Doctor, like you said, they'll be gone in the morning."

"Like _they_ said," he corrected.

"Semantics," she laughed with a small wave of her hand. Glancing at her father, she sighed, "I take it the boys haven't woken."

"No," the Doctor told her quietly.

"Artie and Angie," she managed, hand coming up to her mouth.

"We checked, both out as well."

Clara watched him a moment and he saw the small twitch her head gave before she looked out towards the kitchen to watch her father continue to whisper into the phone. The Doctor could hear the man discussing him – this stranger that his daughter brought home – and how when it was all over, he'd want some answers. Clara simply watched, curiosity plaguing her face.

"You're being unusual," she said, turning back to him, "Even for yourself. Too quiet, like something's on your mind that you think I shouldn't know about," she finished with a squint of her eyes – and that twitch again. Like a computer circuit shorting.

"I'm concerned."

"About what?"

He gestured with his chin towards the window, where the boys were still carefully watching her.

Clara didn't look, and he supposed he could accept that, except, it wasn't how he expected her to react. If they'd released her, and if nothing had truly occurred while she'd been unconscious, she'd have no problems scowling at the three faces that stared in at her. And, as if reading his mind, she uttered, "It's all games with them, isn't it Doctor? Release me and then watch to see what I'll do."

"But for what purpose?" He posited, "Why allow you to wake while others remain in slumber?"

"Must have been something someone said… or thought," she looked towards her father again.

"What sort of relationship do you have with your father, Clara?"

Her smile was automatic, and awkward, and she shrugged, "He's my father."

"But do you talk?"

"Of course we talk," she huffed. "What sort of question is that?"

"How is it that your father isn't aware of what you're capable of?" He told her, "A father should know his daughter to be brave and adventurous, but the look in his eyes when I told him as much seemed to imply that he doesn't know much about you at all."

"He knows enough," Clara spat, and he could sense an odd wall developing. One he'd never seen from her before. Of course, he'd never truly discussed her parents with her before, or any family really. "He doesn't need to know every detail of my life," she added suddenly, "Should I have told him about what we do? The places we've been to and the _danger_ that my life has been in… because of you?"

Shaking his head, he remained silent, seeing the redness climbing over her face.

"It's been different since mum," she admitted. "I guess I blamed him somehow – how could he let the woman he loves die – and there's been that small rift ever since."

With a smile of understanding, the Doctor reached out to take her hands, "You know if he were given the choice, he'd have switched places. He'd have done anything to ensure her safety."

She gave him a weak laugh, "No, I know. It was silly of me. I was a kid, and it took a while, but I know it wasn't his fault – it wasn't him sulking about needing the _cool shirt_ all her friends were wearing and he certainly wasn't making mannequins come to life and… _kill people_."

He froze, grip tightening slightly on her hands, but he hid away the connection that formed in his memories as she met his eyes and he nodded to her, "You should tell him, tell him the things you've seen out there – the way you're so much more…."

Clara shook her head, "He doesn't need that."

"The constant worry?" The Doctor prodded, dropping his head when she chuckled and nodded. "I suppose a father is always in a state of anxiousness over the actions of his children."

Slipping her hands out of his grasp, she folded them over her chest and sighed. "What happened while I was asleep?"

He inched back, watching the way she steeled herself, and told her plainly, "Games."

Clara opened her mouth to respond, but her head lobbed forward slightly as she was hit with a sudden dizzy spell that blurred her vision and made her stomach sink. She caught herself and gave her head a shake of confusion as he stood, quickly rounding the table to run the Sonic over her.

"Games," she repeated and then looked to the window, "Make them stop, Doctor. Make them stop looking at me." And then she shouted, "_Get them out of my head_!"

He registered the quickening of her heart rate and then she fell over into him, hands cupping her ears as she winced against something he could neither see nor hear. Lifting her easily, he ignored Dave as he shouted at him and he moved into the kitchen, further away from the boys that were smiling in the window. He knelt on the ground, laying her against the tile and giving the air a blast with his Sonic.

"STOP!" She shouted at him.

"Clara, I'm trying to disrupt the psychic field," he explained calmly.

He switched the Sonic again and it lit up. Her eyes pressed tighter together and he could see her teeth clenched as her lips split slightly in a hiss and then she went still. He stood, carefully laying her head down on the floor and moved past Dave to see the boys in the window turn swiftly towards something in the fog and they rushed off. Looking back to Clara, now in her father's arms, he felt the unease of his thoughts spreading out like knives over his body because he knew the connection had been severed, but he wasn't sure which side she'd been on.

Clara shouted out when she felt the fall. The rush of pins and needles in her stomach became overwhelming and then came the impact against her back, punching the air out of her lungs. She tried to inhale, to take one ragged breath, but all that happened was pain and constriction. It seared her chest and she whined as she attempted a second time, and then a third, terrified she might not get another chance.

Seeping in slowly, the misty air expanded inside of her and her eyes snapped open to look out into the white substance she was drowning in. Limbs momentarily uncoordinated, Clara fumbled to roll herself onto her front and lift herself on her hands and knees as she continued to take labored breaths. She tried to concentrate, to will herself some sort of control over her limbs, and when she opened her eyes, she focused on the ground underneath her. Soft and wet and smelling of grass and dirt.

She was outside.

How could she be outside?

"Hello?" She rasped, coughing against the harsh air tickling at her insides.

The silence that greeted her was unnerving.

Clara pushed herself off the ground and stood on shaky legs, looking around at the fog that obscured her vision as she futilely waved it away. She covered her mouth with her hand and took several drunken steps towards what looked like a light source before she realized there was no way to know what it was. The light could be the very thing they were hiding from.

Of course, there wasn't much of an alternative – she had no clue what was in any other direction either and any other direction could also hold the thing they'd been holed up in her father's house hiding from. With a grunt of annoyance, she began walking towards the light source again. If that was the big bad, then she'd have a chat with it and maybe she do some damage before it killed her.

There was a soft laughter coming from behind her and she turned in time to see several boys jogging towards her with grins on their pale faces. They were more unnerving without the glass between them and they came up to stand at either side of her, smiling up at her, an occasional chuckle escaping one and then echoing through them one by one. Clara reached out instinctively and she gripped one by the shoulder, feeling him solid underneath her fingers and she furrowed her brow – they were really real.

"Of course they're real, why wouldn't they be; they're just like you, an extension of me."

Clara jerked away from the voice in front of her, confused by the familiarity of it and when she glanced up at the man in front of her, she gasped aloud. The Doctor straightened his bow tie and grinned down at her before offering a hand that she reluctantly took, incapable for the moment of controlling her movements because he was inside her mind, seizing her bones and muscles. Pulling her close, he took a long sniff of her neck and cheek as she turned away and closed her eyes against him because he couldn't possibly be real.


	7. The Break in the Line

He settled his lips just under her earlobe and she involuntarily shivered as he let out a sound of amusement, gripping her body tightly to his. Clara felt as though her mind were swimming and she knew she needed to focus, needed to wrestle out of his grasp and needed to get back to the real Doctor and her father, whom, she knew, would be worried sick about her. His tongue tasted her skin and she shouted out, feeling a surge rush through her body and she was thrown free, breaking through the fog to tumble to the ground.

"She is as strong as he says," he tells her, eyes dark, thin lips spread into a grin of satisfaction.

"What, no more rhymes?" Clara quipped. "No more _cleverness_?"

"We could continue the _game_, if you'd like," he replied darkly. "The rhymes work to unnerve the adults just long enough to sever their own connections, moreso than the illusions and the fear. And it's easier to manipulate the child without that protective umbilical to their parents."

Standing, she eyed him, hands clasped at his waist. "What are you?"

With a nod of his head, he allowed, "I am your nightmare."

"Nightmare," Clara repeated, glancing at the boys, "And them?"

"They're just silly little play things." He smiled and Clara listened to the boys as they broke out into fits of laughter that seemed to bounce around in her head.

She growled angrily and shouted, "SHUT UP!" and they all stopped, taking a step away from her as she glared at them, fists clenched at her sides.

The Doctor gestured at her with a finger, "Aren't you a tiny bit scared, Clara?"

"Oh, I'm plenty scared," she admitted with a small laugh, "But so are you."

He nodded, "Please, explain."

"You thought this would be easy – whatever game you're playing – and you'd bring me here, look like him, and I'd succumb because you prey on weak minds. But the boys…" she trailed. "The boys are an extension of you, like you said, and the boys can be silenced." Clara smiled and she nodded to him. "There's a small flicker of doubt in your eyes, one that tells you I shouldn't be capable of telling you any of this, and that makes you scared. And if you're scared of me, even that tiny little bit, then you can be rejected by me and my rejecting you might be the thing that hurts you most – wouldn't it."

"I fear no mortal," he growled.

"But I'm no mortal here, am I?" Clara watched his face shift. "An extension of you, like the boys. Not quite all here yet, am I?" And when he frowned, she laughed, "Yeah, I'm fairly aware of what's happened."

The Doctor moved towards her and she remained still as he touched her chin and then gripped it between his fingers, squeezing until it stung. "You can be returned," he warned, dropping his fingers away and walking a circle around her, elbow brushing her back and coming to rest just beneath her shoulder as he stood at her side, "In a way that has your father mourning over another grave."

Clara shifted away from him and she shook her head, "Do you even know the man you're imitating? Do you understand the lengths he would go to to protect this planet? The children here?"

"_You_," he added with a smile to the sky. "I'm fairly aware of what's happened as well," he repeated her words callously before taking a step forward and twirling to look at her, "And I'm fairly sure he's going to have his hands very full very soon."

"What's happened?" Dave demanded.

"I've disrupted the psychic field around her, forcing it to sever from what's outside," the Doctor told the man who held his daughter and pushing long bangs away from her face.

He glared up at him, "So why isn't she waking?"

"It could take time," he lied.

"Doctor, I'm many things – naïve is not one of them," Dave spat before demanding, "Why isn't she waking?"

"It's possible she's not in her body anymore," the Doctor admitted in a shout that left them both staring at one another before he looked away, unable to watch the loss registering in the other man's eyes. He'd seen it too many times; he'd known it far too often himself. "It's possible she's still in there, just a sliver of herself, and that's why she hasn't passed on entirely – that tiny sliver keeps her in a coma, keeps her viable for return, like a sort of bookmark holding the place for the reader."

"You're telling me my daughter isn't in her body; you're telling me that _my daughter_ is at death's doorstep," Dave says lowly, "And you say it with an air of familiarity that I don't feel comfortable with."

"It's not the first time I've seen her at death's doorstep," he admitted to the man, turning fully as Dave laid her down and stood to approach him. "Dave, she won't give up without a…"

The fist that connected with his jaw was stronger than any he'd ever experienced and he recoiled as the sting brought tears to his eyes. The second doubled him over and the third to the side of his face caught him off guard and sent him sprawling across the ground next to the dining room table. The Doctor coughed roughly, feeling himself being pulled off the carpet and spun around and he looked down into eyes that burned with rage; eyes he recognized, and he was properly afraid.

"You tell me how you're going to bring her back," Dave demanded, grabbing hold of his lapels in tight fists just underneath his neck.

The Doctor raised his hands, gripped Dave's arms, "I can't do that, not without figuring out how she's gone."

"Psychic field," Dave spat. "You bring back that psychic field – that link between what's in her head and what's outside that window and you bring her back."

"I could re-establish that link and anything could come back; anything could take over her body and I'm fairly certain it's already been inside her head – has been roaming her thoughts since she went unconscious the first time, possibly even before." He pulled his hands away, "The minute that fog rolled in, it crept into her head and it sauntered over her mind – something else could come through and we'd be none the wiser."

"And that's why you thought she wasn't herself before," he surmised.

He shook his head, "It was her, but something else was in there with her, still studying her – and obviously it had let her go for a reason."

"What reason?"

"Gather more intel, gather more strength, who knows."

Dave turned back to Clara and he lowered his eyes to the ground a moment before taking a long breath and suggesting, "Let something back in."

The Doctor watched him curiously, and uttered a simple, "What?"

Looking up at him, Dave pointed at Clara, "Reconnect that psychic field and let whatever comes in in, if we can communicate with something from that side, we could figure out what's going on and if we can do that, maybe we'll get closer to figuring out how to get _my Clara_ back."

"You're risking her life."

"It's already hanging in the balance though, isn't it Doctor?" He shot. "I'm wagering on her being strong enough to return – even if it's not immediately – I'm wagering on giving her a chance."

Twisting his Sonic between his palms, he watched the face that stared at him sternly and he was far too acquainted with the feelings behind it. He lowered the Sonic and pressed the button, listening to the buzz that grew louder and louder in the air. And Clara gasped suddenly behind them. She was a mess of movement, backing into a cabinet and pulling herself up to look around the room as Dave and the Doctor entered, both keeping their distance.

Her chest rose and fell quickly, mouth slightly open as she studied the space in front of her before lifting her eyes to them and giving them a small half smile, "Took long enough," she uttered.

"Clara?" Dave asked, but the Doctor stopped him with a fast hand before he could move towards her.

"Doctor?" Clara asked, brow lowering in confusion.

"I don't know that you're Clara," he told her honestly, guiltily.

She laughed, "Of course I'm Clara. And I could use a little comforting right about now after all I've been through."

Dave glanced sideways at the Doctor, who shook his head lightly.

"Dad?" Clara called.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but, those things – they've read your mind; I don't know if it's you."

Her hands came together to cover the quivering of her bottom lip before she nodded and then moved to stand and the Doctor stopped Dave a second time from approaching her. She stood gingerly, fingers lightly tapping against the counter beside her, and then moved towards them, giving them a nervous grin as they shifted away, and she went to the living room, staring out at the fog that swirled at the window.

"Could I prove it's me?" She called back at them.

The Doctor stepped forward and gripped the Sonic in his hand. He might be able to scan her for brain patterns, but he knew it was possible that an entity that could mimic her thoughts and her memories might also be able to mimic other functions of the body. He looked into the fog and watched the face that appeared there. One small boy who looked in on them.

"I don't know if there's a way," he admitted.

"Clara, come away from the window, dear," Dave told her, waiting as she took a step back, but watched the child who stared up at her.

The Doctor watched its eyes go dark and its lips gnash at Clara in unspoken words. Raising an arm towards her, the Doctor prompted, "If you are Clara, come away from the window."

She turned swiftly and took a step towards him, hesitating when he moved back. The boy in the window banged against it and the Doctor and Dave jumped at the sound as Clara remained still. He moved around her deftly and stood in front of the child that pressed their hands to the glass and bared its teeth before pointing at Clara and grasping at its chest.

Clara could feel the burn of tears on her face as she watched the Doctor looking at her with anger in his eyes as she clutched at her dress and shouted again, "It's not me Doctor; she's not me!"

And from behind her she felt an arm snake around her waist and pull her back into the fog.


	8. The Snowy Void

The Doctor stared into the white nothing for a while after the child disappeared, his mind working over why it had reacted so differently – why it had come singularly – why it approached at all. He considered the Clara behind him, could hear her talking to her father in barely a whisper about how frightening it had been to be lost in that world. In a darkness from which she thought she might never wake. And how she was glad to be back with them.

_Safe_.

He turned to look at her, studying the way she sat at the edge of the couch, back straight, hand fluttering about as she spoke, small bops of her head that had become so familiar to him. It pained him to suspect that it wasn't truly her because her father was smiling. The grin on his face and the laughter as he responded to her quips full of cleverness and he imagined her eyes widening with the awkward half-smirk that revealed the dimple at her cheek.

Raising his Sonic, he tested the fog again and he read over the findings, glancing sideways when she came to stand at his side, fingers touching his elbow softly. "I don't understand why they haven't left," she pondered, looking up expectantly at him for an answer.

"I suspect they haven't yet achieved what they've come here to achieve."

"Namely?" She prompted.

"Children," he explained with a nod. "They're not through with the game."

"What do you suppose the game is, Doctor? And why play a game at all – they've clearly shown themselves capable of subduing humanity with a few spare thoughts… why not simply take that which they've come to take and stop the frivolity of this."

He sighed and then smiled down at her. "This is the fun."

"This is not fun," she frowned.

"No, I suppose it isn't – to us."

She sighed and turned away from the window, moving up the stairs calmly as Dave called, "Clara, where are you headed?"

"Yes, you really should stay down here with us," the Doctor supplied.

She laughed lightly and leaned against the wooden banister uttering a simple, "Honestly," before continuing up the stairs.

Dave crossed his arms and nodded to the Doctor, "Why do you suppose they haven't left, Doctor?"

He pointed towards the stairs with his Sonic and told him plainly, "Because that's not Clara."

"Obviously she's Clara," Dave countered.

The Doctor shook his head and watched Dave step towards him.

"You think I don't know my own daughter?" The man hissed.

"I think there are things you don't know, no," he challenged.

"You think you know my daughter better, that what you're saying?"

With another shake of his head, the Doctor admitted, "No, I don't think that at all. But I do know a thing or two about out-of-the-ordinary and everything here reeks of it."

Dave considered him a moment before finally sighing and asking quietly, "What do you smell?"

"Mostly your roast, which is, honestly, distracting," he gained a frustrated look from the man. "Clara wouldn't go bounding up the stairs so calmly after just having suggested that they take the children they've come to take, as if this were nothing more than annoyance..."

"Unless she believed this _was_ nothing more than an annoyance," Dave ended.

Gesturing back at the fog in the window, the Doctor began, "And obviously…"

"Still something to worry about," Dave finished for him.

He nodded again, "If this Clara were really Clara, she'd be…"

"Down here doing this with you," Dave grunted.

"We're not quite at finishing each other's sentences, but, mostly… yes, she would be here trying to figure out why the fog is still around and why the child came to the window so angrily, something I've been giving some thought to and Dave, you're not going to like what's on my mind."

"The child in the window was actually Clara and that was her trying to tell us," Dave responded with a simple nod of his head as he looked up to find a surprised look on the Doctor's face as his jaw went slack. "I'm not as thick as you might think."

"Well," the Doctor began, "I suppose Clara would have to get it from somewhere."

"Mum was sharp too," Dave pointed.

"And your daughter is a right dagger, and this Clara would know that. At some point she's going to realize that her behavior is suspect and she's going to correct it. She's going to try to convince you that she's really Clara, not by actively trying to convince you, but with subtlety."

Dave gave a laugh, "Your riddles are worse than theirs."

"Oh, you have no idea," the Doctor admitted with a smug grin as he turned back to the window. "I just don't know how to communicate with her – let her know that we're aware."

"Psychic field," Dave gestured out at the fog. "You're an alien, can't you hack into that with your alien-ness?"

"Oh Dave," the Doctor smiled, letting his head tilt slightly as he rubbed his jaw, "I would kiss you, but I've felt your right hook."

Clara was thrown to the ground and it rubbed her elbows raw. The man that stood over her shifted, his appearance altering slightly – flickering like a television screen – and she suspected that it was possible he wasn't as real as he purported to be. Or, at least this manifestation wasn't. Though it was real enough to leave a bruised feeling at her midsection and she was real enough to see the blood dotting the skin at her arm.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that really pissed you off," she muttered at him, pulling herself up off the ground to move away from him as he stepped towards her.

He growled, his face melting and reforming as the Doctor's.

The boys rushed around her, feet crunching in the melting snow and Clara registered that it was melting. She hadn't realized it before and now she kicked at the clumps left and looked up at the man with a nod of her head and told him, "You're growing weaker."

"No," he spat.

"Every second you spend, exhausting your energy on this field, on these boys and these psychic connections, you grow weaker from the effort," she told him knowingly. "Fairly soon you won't be able to hold it together at all – is that why sunrise?"

"What?" He asked gruffly.

"You said before you'd be gone by sunrise, is that the amount of time you gave yourself to play these games, to convince the children to come into the fog, before you had to be gone?" He stared at her. "Oh!" She laughed. "Oh, the more you _have to_ play these games, the smaller that window becomes, doesn't it." Clara rubbed at her arms, feeling chilly in the air that swirled towards her suddenly, as if a gust of his anger had wrapped around her. "The more I fight you, the more energy you need to sustain the illusion because it's all an illusion isn't it."

He reached forward to grab at her and his hand slipped through her, "I could kill them all before I go and I could take you with me."

"You can't," she laughed.

And her midsection seized tightly, sending her to the ground gasping in pain. "You intrigue me," he admitted, circling her as she coughed and held her stomach. "The little girl who's conquered the universe."

Clara glanced up at him, feeling that pain reaching up from her abdomen into her chest.

"Daddy's girl – you know that's what he sees when he looks upon you. A child. Incapable and frightened, but the other… what is he? The alien mind that sits behind a pane of glass because he's afraid. He's afraid where the _little girl_ isn't – how… interesting." Bending in front of her, he lifted her chin on his knuckle. "How is it that a man who has destroyed entire civilizations bends to my whim and stands on watch, immobilized by fear," he gestured towards where she presumed her father's house sat, "Oh, _oh_ isn't it my turn for revelations." He let her chin drop with a laugh, "The mind is an awfully terrifying thing to play with. He's afraid to stop me because it might damage the children."

She managed a smile before shaking her head, "He's not afraid."

"He trembles in his chest, I've felt it!"

"He's merely trying to come up with the most clever way to defeat you."

He laughed, "He hesitates because of you, you know. His _dear_ Clara."

_He's not entirely wrong_.

Clara jerked slightly at the suddenness of his voice in her mind, fluttering over her thoughts quietly, like a feather over skin and she could see the gooseflesh rising. The man in front of her grabbed hold of her arms and yanked her off the ground, shouting, "What is it?"

"What is what?" She shouted at him when she had regained her footing.

She listened for more, but there was just the silence and the small murmurs of the boys that stood just far enough away to not be seen. Clara glanced around because she felt his presence, and she found herself laughing lightly at the thought that he'd come back out for her, but she knew that was wrong – he hadn't come out of the house at all. He was still standing there, just inside of the window, somehow reaching out with his thoughts.

_Doctor?_

_Clara, can you come back? Come back to me._

_I don't know if I can._

_You just have to be stronger than him._

_How?_

_You did it once, you reached the window._

_You saw me?_

_Yes, come to the door, I can disrupt the field long enough for you to regain control of your body._

_My body?_

_It's sort of occupied_

_Occupied by whom?_

_One of the boys._

_There's a boy in my body!_

_Clara, focus!_

_Right, focus._

The man who stood in front of her growled with anger and his face shifted, blinked away from the strong brow and the long chin into a mess of static until it morphed. He was an older man, the man they'd seen when they'd tried to have dinner – tall and draped in rags, he scowled down at her through slivers of wispy hair with ice blue eyes that stood out against the starkness of his skin. Reaching out, he grabbed her head, fingers sent scalding ropes of fire through her skull.

"Let's see him follow you now," he hissed, popping out of existence with Clara in his grasp.


	9. Dave, the Doctor, and Not Clara

He felt a snap, somewhere in the back of his head, and it was accompanied by a double pang in his chest – both of his hearts knowing she was no longer just a stone's throw away and he gave a pained scream as he fell away from the window and stumbled against the coffee table, then dropped onto the floor. Dave was shouting at him, coming to his side and trying to steady him as he shouted out in anger. Why had he thought it would be easy? He could have condensed his efforts on trying to get into the mind of the man with her. He could have given her the time she needed through him.

But he had to know she was alright.

He had to communicate through her.

"What happened?" Dave asked roughly.

And from the top of the stairs, they heard Clara gasp loudly and then her footsteps pounded down in a rush until she stood just next to the door, staring out into the fog. The fog that was lifting rapidly, revealing street lamps and wet lawns and pavements, a half assembled snowman melting in the street. Dave rose to look out and he turned to Clara, moving towards her until the Doctor grabbed hold of his foot, holding him in place with a shake of his head.

"What happened?" Clara asked, gesturing to the window, "Are they gone?"

"Dave," the Doctor called, voice still rough in his throat, "Call your brother, make sure the boys are alright; then call the Maitland's." The man hesitated and he barked, "Now, Dave! Go!"

He released a frustrated grunt and then moved to the kitchen as Clara came to the Doctor's side, helping him onto the couch and gently swiping the bangs from his forehead as he watched her, feeling hollow as she smiled up at him.

"They're gone; we're safe," she told him calmly.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed reluctantly, "They're gone." He glanced up to see Dave press a hand to his face before swiping it away and smiling and the Doctor knew – the children were fine. At least he hoped they were, he thought, turning to watch Clara again. No, he knew, the children were different, if he'd taken them, they'd be dead, not lingering with the ghost of an illusion and a sliver of a connection that remained because of what he'd done.

He smiled. _That little last tether_…

"We should finish dinner," she grinned. "Celebrate."

"Don't you wonder where they went?" He asked her.

She shrugged, "Of course I wonder, but I also know it's been a long day – you could track them with your Tardis, couldn't you? Go saunter off and question them later?"

"I could," he told her, standing and taking a step towards the window to scan the air with his Sonic before turning to see Dave approaching as he uttered a quick, "I'm very sorry, but I doubt you're going to be capable."

Dave opened his mouth to question him, but he picked up the lamp on the end table and smashed it into the back of Clara's head and she quickly slumped forward as Dave shouted out, rushing to her before the Doctor reminded solemnly, "That's not your daughter, Dave."

"No, but it is still her body," he replied as he checked the back of her head to show the Doctor the bit of blood he found.

The Doctor grimaced and uttered, "Oh."

"Ya," Dave spat, "Oh." Then he shrugged, "What do we do now? How do we find her?"

He gestured at Clara and cocked his head, "Like she said, track them with my Tardis."

"Your what?"

Moving towards him, the Doctor picked Clara up off the couch and nodded his head for Dave to follow. They went to the front door, going outside and shivered in the left-over chill that hung in the air as neighbors peered out to see if it was safe. They rounded the house and the Doctor whistled at the blue box standing there, walking through the doors that opened for him so he could lay Clara down just inside before glancing out and waving the other man inside.

Dave stopped short and looked the Tardis over with a scowl before snapping, "I'm not getting in that box with you."

With an eye roll, the Doctor shouted, "It's not just a box."

"It's not that big," Dave raised his arms to either side of the machine.

"Get in, Dave!"

"What is it?" The other man demanded.

"Tardis! Space ship! Not really having the time to explain this to another Oswald… again," he ended, knowing he'd already explained it to two.

Dave grunted and then pushed through the slightly open doors as the Doctor moved to the console. "What is… how is…" he stepped back outside and did a half circle over either side of the ship before re-entering and gasping, "It's like magic."

With a nod of appreciation and a half smirk, the Doctor raised a finger, "Close the doors."

Obliging, Dave made his way to the man's side, glancing at Clara as he passed, before asking firmly, "How are we going to track them?"

The Doctor pointed at Clara, "Imagine that all of that fog outside is condensed inside of her and somewhere in that fog is a small piece of original Clara, holding out a light, waiting to be found."

"Bookmark, I remember," Dave told him in frustration.

"If that's a candle, then Clara – wherever she is – is a beacon, shining out into space. I just have to find that light and point the Tardis in her direction."

"Like a cadaver sniffing dog," Dave said, staring up at the center of the Tardis solemnly.

Shrugging, the Doctor corrected, "Maybe more like the ones at the airports, sniffing out drugs, or bombs."

Dave stared at him incredulously. "That's your more accurate analogy?"

"Well she's not dead," the Doctor spat.

"She's not an explosive, or a drug," Dave replied dryly.

"Well…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and considered the comparisons before Dave back handed him in the chest and pointed at the gadgets in front of him, then barked, "Oi! _Find my daughter_!"

Dave watched as the man rushed towards Clara and ran his Sonic over her before coming back to the console and jamming the device into a port that immediately lit up. The Tardis gave a small jump and Dave held onto the edge of the unfamiliar equipment in front of him, feeling an odd swaying in his stomach and a quick dizziness of the mind – as though they'd taken off.

"So what kind of ship is it?" He asked, eyes trailing over the space they stood in.

"Tardis, can travel in space and time, or through space and time, and no – there's no jam involved, no strawberries or any other nonsense," he passed a glance at Clara, "Just space and time vortex and blimey she's gone far…" he pulled down a monitor and narrowed his eyes at it.

Trying to peek up at the screen, Dave asked, "Where's he taken her?"

"You're handling this rather well," the Doctor judged, looking him over.

Dave gave a nod, eyes widening slightly, and he sighed, "I'll freak out over all of this _nonsense_ just as soon as I know Clara is safe."

With a small grin of acknowledgement, the Doctor shifted the computer screen over so the man could see the planet they'd just dropped into orbit around. "Never been," he admitted, "Not much in this space, but I suppose it warrants a look now."

"Warrants a good detonation of a large weapon."

Frowning, the Doctor chided, "Never weapons."

"Never weapons, Doctor – they stole Clara," he gestured back to the unconscious woman.

Clenching his jaw, he responded as calmly as he could, "And as much as that angers me, as much as what they had intended to do to the children angers me, there's never a need for weapons."

"Suppose you'll just give 'em a time out then, eh?" He snarked, leaning closer.

The Doctor's eyes lit up, "A time out."

"What?" Dave asked, unsure.

Twisting a knob several times and lifting a lever at his right, he pointed at a button that Dave slammed a fist down into and they lurched sideways. Clara's head lulled to the left and she moaned in protest as the two men stared at one another, this time, the Doctor smiling.

"What?" Dave questioned again, "What just happened?"

"We've landed."

"Where?"

He slapped his fingers away from a set of switches, "On the planet, of course."

"So let's go," Dave pressed, moving towards the doors.

"No, we have to wait for them to arrive," the Doctor informed him.

Dave pointed at the doors, "Arrive? But we followed them here."

He gestured around, "Did I mention it's a time machine?"

"We've arrived and then re-arrived before they've arrived?" Dave said quickly.

"Catch on quick," the Doctor allowed before moving to the front doors to open them, looking out at the landscape that was peppered with destroyed buildings and deadened trees. "Not quite what I was expecting."

"You had expectations?" Dave asked as he came along to his side and looked out.

With a shrug, he told him, "I guess I thought that a creature who could manipulate thoughts would have a home planet that looked a bit more… well… playful."

"What, like a giant chess board?"

"Yes." Turning swiftly, he asked brightly, "You play?"

"Yeah," Dave grunted.

"Fancy a match?"

Dave shoved him out of the Tardis and was immediately hit from behind with the door, throwing him to the ground where he growled up at the box, "Time machine eh?"

"Well, you pushed first," the Doctor argued.

The door opened slowly and Clara glanced out, opening her mouth to argue with the Doctor when the door swung roughly inward, knocking her in the head and she fell back to the ground, unconscious, as the two men stood.

Glaring at the Tardis, the Doctor muttered, "I'm just going to presume you were helping and took no pleasure in that."

The light at the top of the Tardis flashed brightly and he turned to look at Dave, who was pulling himself off the ground and wiping off his pants. "So what do we do now, Doctor? How do we find her? And how do we get her back into her body."

Licking his finger and thrusting it into the air, he replied, "First things first – must attune myself to the psychic field on this planet. And quickly."


	10. The General at War

Clara had gotten used to travelling with the Doctor. She'd grown accustomed to the odd pull in her gut every time that machine took off and the plunging feeling every time they landed. Travelling with the entity that had ripped her from her body was like being washed in nausea and fire and when they finally stopped, she fell over onto the rubble and vomited air. She listened as he laughed, crunching through the rocks and wooden splinters that lay scattered over the ground and when she looked up, he nodded.

"Who's weak now?"

"Where are we?" She replied, ignoring his taunting stare.

He gestured about, "This is my planet."

Clara struggled to stand against the queasiness that lingered in her stomach as she told him sternly, "I would say it needs an interior decorator, but I suppose you'd need an interior to decorate first."

Raising his arms, she watched as a group of youngsters came rushing towards him, all seemingly glad to see him return and Clara looked over their faces. There were what looked like humans – she couldn't be sure – but there were also faces of all colors, faces with more eyes or less eyes, odd noses and even no noses. Some had tentacles and others had flaps and there were a few that looked a bit like the Ood the Doctor had told her about once. The only thing they had in common was their wariness of her as she steadied herself a few feet from the man who'd taken her and she didn't need to ask them what they were looking at.

She was the alien here.

"This is my army," he allowed.

"Army?" Clara called. "They're children."

"Yes, and children make the best armies," he smiled. "They're too afraid to question your authority and by the time you've raised them up in it, they know no better. Loyal, to a fault."

"What of the fog boys?"

"Manifestations of my mind," he smiled.

"So you wanted the children of Earth to join your army?"

He sighed, and gestured out, "Only the worthy – the ones I can use or sell. Of course, you got in the way of that so I suppose you'll do for now."

"Do for what?"

Looking out over the children that wiped at their faces and made small noises of fear, he told her plainly, "The Doctor thinks highly of you and I've taken a stroll through his mind – through the parts he didn't lock away – and I've had a grand ol' time looking at yours; you're quite impressive."

"For what?" She repeated.

"Well, it depends on you really," he told her, gesturing at her. "You don't really have a body, that's mostly psychic energy reconstructing a memory in order to keep you captive, but I'm sure I could sacrifice one of them," he looked over the faces that studied each other, suddenly suspicious of one another, "I could sell you off to the highest bidder. Oh I bet those Daleks would kill for your genius."

Clara felt an unusual tug to her right and she turned towards it, but as soon as she did, there was a small sting in her mind that made her turn back.

"Or I could keep you as you are – and you could put your prowess to good use helping me decide where to send the children."

"Send the children?" She managed through gritted teeth.

He clapped his hands together. "I'm the pied piper, Clara. My business is rounding them up and turning them into soldiers. And then I barter them away for money or food or whatever really… everyone's always looking for soldiers – do you have any idea how many ongoing wars there are out there that need a few good front men?"

Taking an uncontrollable step towards him, she shook her head, "Sell me then, because I won't help you sell them."

"Would you have a choice?" He asked lightly, fingers stroking her face. "Although, he has turned you into a proper soldier for me. I doubt you'd be a good choice for the Cyberwars; you'd never withstand the transformation – too much in there," he tapped her head. "Oh, if you had your body – the spare parts," he smiled, "They could always use those somewhere."

_Clara_.

Her head whipped to the side as she searched out the voice, weak in the back of her mind. And she smiled because she felt a smidge safer knowing he was at least able to communicate. Of course, the man in front of her wasn't so thrilled. He looked about as well before grabbing her roughly and demanding, "What are you hearing?"

_Oh, the silly man doesn't like the games_.

A giggle rolled over the children and then they all fell over shouting and Clara could see the blue veins that now threaded the man in front of her as he looked over them, obviously inflicting the damage. She lifted a knee swiftly into his groin and took satisfaction in the solid kick she was able to deliver before he turned his attention to her. He showed his teeth, unkempt and sharp, but she could see out of the corner of her eye that the children had been able to scamper back to their hiding places.

"He wants to play games," he uttered.

Clara screamed when the hands that held her in place iced over and froze her skin. A white frost spread down her arms and began travelling up towards her torso until it touched her heart and she gasped, but there was a small nagging inside her head – a chuckle – and she wanted to shout at him because she didn't think it was very funny, except, he made a noise of disapproval.

_It's all in your mind, Clara – you have no body_.

The notion was strange to her, but as soon as she understood that he was right, the pain subsided and there was an unusual warmth drifting over her. With a glance up at him, she slipped easily out of his grasp, floating through his hands a step.

"If you can't control the mind, you can't control anything," she told him firmly.

"No," he managed, taking a step towards her as she moved away.

Clara looked at the children, "He can't control your mind if you don't let him!"

They shook their heads and ducked behind pieces of walls and other debris and the man in front of her laughed, "They're corporeal – I might not be able to control their minds, but I can still hurt them. And why wouldn't I be able to control the weak minded children."

"Children's minds aren't weak," Clara shouted at him. "The mind of a child is the most powerful thing in the universe!" She rushed towards them, bending to their level to shake her head and declare, "Still developing, still open and learning – _they could do anything_."

_That's right, Clara_.

"They're limited by their knowledge!" He chuckled.

_This planet is teeming with psychic energy_.

"They're _unlimited_ by their imagination!" She cried with a laugh. "Imagine anything!" She challenged, looking over them, "Anything!"

_It's why he's stronger here, it amplifies his abilities_.

"Weak," the man offered with a huff.

_Anyone could tap into that_.

She stood and clenched her teeth in frustration as she looked at the man who held his hands together, fingers against fingers, and smiled back at her. Amused. Inhaling deeply, she thought about the rubble around her and how light it could be, how easily she could lift it into the air and it began to rumble. The man stopped smiling, glancing down at the rocks shook and then, unsteadily, rose into the air and turned on their spots as Clara concentrated.

_We're on our way_.

"Doctor, you'd better hurry," she muttered.

_Well, you do have the advantage._

_Not really caring who has the advantage._

_Clara, is this what you do with him?_

"Dad?" she managed, the rocks falling to the ground in a crash of pops and bangs. "You brought my dad! I'm gonna kill you!"

_Dave!_

_Doctor, you practically implied that I should_.

"Dad, shut up!"

_Clara!_

"Sorry!"

_Everyone focus!_

Watching the way the man in front of her started to pace, hands lifting up at his sides to begin manipulating their surroundings himself, Clara looked to the children who cowered and whimpered. Focus, she could hear the Doctor reminding her, and she shifted the rocks up into the air again, this time sharply, and she thought about them pelting the man and they moved like bullets towards him, but then they stopped in mid-air and burst into dust.

"It's nice, you trying to play the game – finally," the man uttered.

"It's not a game," she told him.

"Oh, is it not?"

He popped out of existence in a swirl of black smoke and then re-emerged just in front of her, hand coming around her roughly before he disappeared again. The Doctor came running out from between the half-destroyed walls that were acting as his cover and into the midst of confused children. Dave stumbled over the rubble behind him and stood at his side, looking about before shouting,

"Where is she!?"

With a gulp of unease, he replied, "I don't know."


	11. The Pawns in the Game

Clara fell against a tiled surface and she spun to a stop, not allowing the pain to be real, or the nausea that she knew was all in her mind. She deftly picked herself up and turned to look out at the room with both curiosity and caution. It wasn't like where they'd been before and she wondered if it was a construct. The tiles on the ground were black and white and for a moment she allowed herself a laugh knowing the Doctor would not only approve, he would want to organize a human chess match, because he loved chess.

And he would argue over whether he should be the king, or the knight.

"I think I'll keep _you_ as my play thing," came the booming voice that brought her hands to her ears. "You're really quite incapable of escape so long as you're not real – not physically real anyways."

She noticed there was a silence in this place that there hadn't been outside. There was no draft through windows, or the hum of machines she associated with buildings: no air conditioners or fans, or even the buzz of the lights above. It was dead quiet. Even in her head.

"What is this place?" She asked, voice echoing.

"This is solace."

"For whom?"

He appeared in a black swirl of clouds a few feet away and approached her slowly, eyes locked on hers as he gestured to himself and smiled. "Do you understand how difficult it is, having the thoughts of everyone around you drifting in and out of your mind? There comes a time when you question whether the thought that you'd just had was your own."

"You've gone mad," Clara declared, clenching her fists and readying herself for a fight.

He laughed to himself and shook his head, "Clara, dear, I've gone nowhere."

_Properly bonkers_, she thought to herself.

"Your companion, he carries with him a slip of psychic paper," he moved to touch the walls and she watched the words that scribble over them. Realized abruptly that the writing, absent of instruments, was scrawling over all of the walls in the room before he continues, "These walls are built from the very same substance, but instead of projecting my thoughts, they keep the thoughts of others out – like a barrier."

_The silence_.

"So very silent, indeed," he tells her, "But I can still hear you. I can actually concentrate all of my powers on just you in this room and do you know what that means, Clara?"

She inched away from him as he began to walk towards her.

Raising a hand, he nodded, "No distractions; more focus."

Clara froze to the spot and she found herself incapable of thought.

Dave grabbed the Doctor by his long coat and shouted in his face, "What do you mean you don't know!?"

Pulling himself out of the other man's grasp, he raised his Sonic in the air and scanned, then growled when it told him that Clara existed only in the Tardis. He looked out over the broken walls and the fallen trees and he found the small eyes that peered up at him and he smiled, bending slightly before pointing out at the children with a laugh to Dave, who didn't look amused.

"He stole all of these children," the man spat, "I don't see why you're laughing."

"Because Clara's right," he responded, straightening and approaching, "The mind of a child is a spectacular thing if encouraged. We've got more computing power here amongst these children than I could ever have in the Tardis."

Dave stood next to him and quietly asked, "You think they could lead us to her?"

With a large grin, the Doctor assured him, "Absolutely," then frowned, "If we can convince them to help us."

"Why wouldn't they help us?" he looked out at the children, "I'm looking for a girl – she was just here."

They cowered in their hiding places and the Doctor turned to him, lowering his head slightly to offer, "Dave, appeal to them."

The man furrowed his brow and he looked over the small bits of faces peeking out here and there and he smiled because he could remember when Clara'd been a child. All the games of hide and seek they would play in the house and all of the times he saw sets of smiling eyes waiting for him, always accompanied by a small giggle that gave her away.

There was a light laugh somewhere nearby and the Doctor smiled. "Memories are powerful things," he informed Dave, "Give them more."

With a quick nod and a hesitant gulp, he thought about the little girl who waved at him as she rode her bike down the street for the first time without training wheels. He remembered the day he'd dropped her off at school and she'd clung to him, asking him not to leave her. They'd spent the day roaming about town – their little secret – and they played spies as they had fish and chips and ordered too much dessert. Dave smiled as he relived the times they'd sat together underneath their blanket fort and read stories until she fell asleep.

Her ballerina outfit.

Her temper tantrums.

Her frustrated pout over homework.

The first boy who broke her heart before she was old enough to drive.

He laughed when she laughed in his memories, some story her mother had told at the dinner table, and he felt tears stream over his face as he played over the day they'd been told Ellie had died. Tragic accident in town; no one had a proper explanation. Dave could remember that night, sitting at her desk, watching her sleep, breath still ragged from crying and she held tightly to a sweater, one of her mother's, just underneath her chin. He blinked it away when a small hand touched his and when he looked down at the red face with the spikes for hair, he dropped to his knees and wiped the odd blue droplets of its tears and allowed it to hug him.

"I just want to take my daughter home," he pleaded.

"He's taken her to the quiet place."

The Doctor stepped forward slowly and asked, "What is the quiet place?"

Another child supplied, "It's where he breaks the naughty children."

"A room where you can only have his thoughts," one said meekly.

"And none of your own," another stuttered.

"Where is the quiet place?" The Doctor prompted.

The small Ood lifted his brain and offered with a pointed finger, "It is not far; we could lead you."

With a nod, he touched the Ood's shoulder, "You'll go with Dave, he'll take you to a magic blue box. If you sing for her, she'll let you in and she'll tell you a story and then she'll mark down your planets so we can find your parents – is that acceptable?"

There was a murmur of agreement over the growing crowd and Dave stood, shaking his head, "I won't go back; Clara's…"

"Someone needs to get the children to safety, Dave," the Doctor interrupted.

"And Clara?" He asked.

Gripping his Sonic tightly, jaw clenching, the Doctor nodded, "I'll bring Clara back to you."

Dave turned, reluctantly, and he smiled for the children, trying not to think about the fact that he was leaving his daughter's safety in the hands of another man. Of course, he understood, it'd probably been there for quite some time. And this man had done well enough, he thought with a look to the Doctor as he listened to instructions from the odd child with the tendrils spilling from its mouth before departing towards a darkness in the distance. The man turned and gave him a small smile and Dave knew – the psychic energy, he'd read his mind.

_You promise me_…

The Doctor nodded.

_I'm almost there_.

Clara felt hollow and her mind was ice, heavy and burning inside of this construct of her head and when he finally released her, she gasped for air, watching the molecules of her body scatter and reform as she fell backwards, away from him, to the ground. She shook her head, raising her arm and whimpering at him to stop. He'd been tossing her about, manipulating her form, and she suspected he wouldn't stop until she agreed to do what he asked, so, for the moment, she nodded.

"I surrender," she managed.

"Oh, do you?" He asked.

She smiled, laugh caught on a hiccup as she glanced up at him, meeting his eye. Clara shook her head, feeling oddly happy, though she had no clue where the emotion had come from. "No, I'm just tired," she admitted, "And I'd really like to continue stalling, but I have to catch my breath."

His chest rose quickly and Clara felt herself pulled off the ground in an invisible grip that tightened around her throat as she grasped for the hands that weren't there. And then he released her, letting her slip back to the ground in a heap before laughing quietly.

"I've just realized – you still think he's coming."

Clara concentrated on breathing, watching the hair that fluttered on each puff of air that escaped her and she knew she felt it, nagging at the back of her thoughts.

_Be quiet; be still, I'm here_.

Closing her eyes, Clara rested.

"You foolish child," the man shouted, footsteps thundering towards her.

He picked her up by the back of her neck and she winced as his cold fingers pinched at her skin and he turned her, in mid-air, to look at him. She could see the blue veins that threaded themselves at the sides of his head, pounding with the effort it was taking to continue this assault on her because she was still fighting. Despite it all, Clara was still working at his thoughts, meddling in his mind. Obscuring the lanky figure stepping into the room until he gave her a wave of his hand and she exhaled.

"Oh, honey," he called with a grin, "I'm home."


	12. Mind Clara

Dave had started them on a lullaby as they walked through the desolate landscape and by the time they reached the Tardis, her doors swung readily open to greet them. A hologram appeared of a red-headed child who smiled eagerly and waved them inside, telling them softly,

"Come on in, no more _waiting_."

He eyed her strangely and she rolled her eyes at him in amused annoyance as he stepped inside after the children, watching them huddle into the ship with curious looks around. Dave wasn't sure what he should do with them, and then the little girl cleared her throat.

"Well," she told him, gesturing at the doors.

He jumped and then turned, closing them quickly before glancing around. "Where's…"

"Oh yeah," the girl said, mouth twisting to the side awkwardly, "She sort of got away."

"Got away!" Dave proclaimed roughly. "Where did she go?" He turned and grabbed hold of the door handles, pulling on them and grunting when they wouldn't budge.

"Sorry, mister, you're staying inside," the Scottish child said sternly, arms crossing in defiance of his anger over the night gown she wore. Then she smiled brightly, "You've got to help lead us in a song!"

The Doctor watched the trickster drop Clara to the ground and he tried to hide his horror when she dissolved into a puddle of flesh tones and deep purples before reforming and collapsing from the effort. He frowned up at the man who smiled back at him knowingly and he understood that he knew exactly what he was thinking.

With an upturned lip, he spat, "Psychic block from anything external," and then he passed a glance at Clara, curiously, "Amplifies everything within."

She smiled weakly up at him as she shifted to sit, bringing the back of her hand to rub at her forehead and she asked quickly, "My dad?"

"Safe," the Doctor acknowledged. Then he turned to the man in front of him and nodded his head, "So what do they call you?"

He smiled, revealing his teeth menacingly before uttering, "Why don't you fish it out, Doctor – and while you're at it, why not let me in on that secret name of yours."

With a grin, the Doctor shook his head, "Let's call you Snowball then."

"Like a poodle," Clara laughed faintly.

He pointed and exclaimed, "Exactly, like a poodle!"

The man before him bellowed, "Noxsum."

And the Doctor turned with a quick fury in the recognition of the name, "You create armies to continue pointless wars. And you do it with stolen children – I should have known."

"You've heard of me then," he called proudly.

Moving towards Clara, the Doctor switched his Sonic in his closed hand and then ran it over her, frowning at the results before telling him, "Yes, I've heard of you," and then asking Clara, "Are you alright?"

She nodded slowly, "I would ask you if you had a plan, but I suppose you don't."

"It would be illogical to plan an attack on a psychic psychopath," he laughed to her, watching her shoulders shake with a small chuckle of her own.

"Logic," she sighed, "Not something I would generally associate with you, Doctor."

"I'm highly logical," he scoffed, "So logical that I presume the reason I'm frozen to this spot is because he's in my head controlling my movements."

Noxsum let out a quick deep laugh as he told him, "The reason you weren't able to put the name to the actions is there isn't a trace left."

"Just missing children," the Doctor supplied. "On some worlds they've made up whole legends around you, to fill in the gaps left in their minds, like the boogeyman on Earth to some – snatching up the children and eating them alive. If they knew the truth, they'd understand how much worse it is." Then he turned his eyes to him, "Why weren't our memories erased? I presume that's how you leave no trace; you skip along inside our memories and wipe yourself from them."

Clara jerked upright and the Doctor straightened as well.

"So why the games? The boys and the rhymes and the show?" The Doctor asked.

Noxsum laughed, "Because it's fun."

"It was fun until she distracted you; a mind you weren't anticipating got caught up in your web."

"A puzzle I've learned to conquer," Noxsum spat, walking a circle around them as they stood motionless in front of one another. "Her mind is abuzz with activity, Doctor. Moreso than yours, which I presume is because you've cautiously locked away or put a stop to your own processes as I do know a thing or two about Time Lords."

"Never got any of our children," he teased with a grin.

"That so," the man hissed into his ear. "What do you think became of those who went mad from the time vortex, the ones who couldn't be salvaged – so mad they couldn't be contained, locked away somewhere and no one gave a second thought to the clouds and the mist and the empty rooms."

Keeping his eyes trained on Clara's, the Doctor's nose flared slightly and he convinced himself that it was a lie because the notion that his people would turn a blind eye… he turned his head slowly to watch as the other man strolled casually about the room.

"So what of us?" The Doctor asked. "A Time Lord and an impossibly clever girl."

Noxsum snorted a laugh, "The price for a Time Lord, do you know, Doctor, what any of a number of armies out there would give to destroy you themselves?" He doubled over, cackles barking out loudly. "Oh, I'll sell you, Doctor, to the highest bidder."

With a grin, the Doctor replied, "I would suggest you sell to the first bidder."

"Doctor!" Clara rasped.

"If you let the universe know that you have me captive, the war that would be fought for a piece of me will destroy your home – what's left of it, anyways – and, quite possibly, you." Laughing, the Doctor informed him, "You tell them you have me and then ask them to bid? It's just a matter of time before someone shoots first."

"Never."

Nodding to the woman in front of him, the Doctor told him calmly, "Clara was capable of taking you down a notch, can't imagine what a proper trip into the pathweb of the Daleks would do to that noggin of yours." He laughed, "Actually, word gets out that one person. One. Single. Human. Was capable of exhausting your mental capabilities over a span of – what was it, two hours, less than? They deal with you out of fear, but I doubt you'll be getting much business if they knew about this, the exploitation of a weakness that others would take advantage of."

The hand at his shoulder was rough and it squeezed harder than he'd anticipated, but he could see Clara taking a small step away, and she glanced towards the entrance, brow dropping slightly. As if sensing something. But he shouted out in pain before he could see her break into a run as the cold fingers sent icy barbs into his flesh and then he was dropped to the ground. The Doctor glanced up just in time to watch as Clara was flung towards a wall where she burst into particles, floating out into the air like dust.

"NO!" He shouted, ripping the Sonic from his inside breast pocket and aiming it at the man who was too busy appreciating what he'd done to stop him. Sending a loud blast that disrupted the psychic field he was using, the Doctor demanded, "What have you done!?" as Noxsum stumbled away from him.

But a small voice called out, "Doctor, I'm fine, all here – one piece."

He turned swiftly and smiled, glancing at the woman who stood near the entrance to the room. "Run, Clara. Your father's at the Tardis with the children."

She pressed her lips together tightly and they drifted upwards into an awkward grin before she shook her head and nodded to Noxsum, "Think he'd let me leave so easily?"

"You can't let him control you; you're stronger than him."

Noxsum backed away from the Doctor and approached Clara, hand coming up to caress her cheek with his knuckles as he reminded, "My play thing, remember?"

Clara shivered slightly and then took a step closer to him.

"You're not Clara," the Doctor uttered.

"He's quick," Clara chirped. "What shall we do with him, father?"

Noxsum sighed, "Call up the Dalek fleet, tell them we have their worst enemy."

The Doctor laughed and gestured at them with a flap of his hand, telling them, "Go on, give 'em a ring, let's see how this works out."

Dropping her head back, Clara fell into an odd trance as Noxsum traced a finger over the back of her head, and the Doctor understood he was using her as a phone – her brain becoming an amplification device – and soon, he knew, there was an answer.

"What is the purpose of this transmission? Explain. EXPLAIN!"

"I have acquired a soldier for you, one of the utmost importance – the Predator, a great source for your hatred." Noxsum smiled deviously and told them, "The Doctor."

He waited, fingers metaphorically crossed, and the silence was deafening.

And then they shouted out, "Doctor Who? DOCTOR WHO?"

With a laugh of appreciation, the Doctor sighed quietly to himself, "Oh, Oswin," before dropping his head and watching Clara's come back up in confusion.

"They don't know him."

"How could they not know him," Noxsum shouted, "I know of your history; it's all in your head!"

Tapping his temple, he sighed, "All in my head, Noxsum, but fortunately I have friends – well, had a friend; well, had an acquaintance really – who's a mad screaming genius and she tip toed into their programming and snatched me right out of there. Sort of like you, with the children, except she was phenomenal and you're… we'll, not quite."

_Oh, that's clever_.

The Doctor looked about the room carefully, a double dose of relief flooding his chest at the sound of her voice in his mind. He listened as Noxsum screamed, and glanced at him in time to see him shove Clara aside. She hit the ground with a shout before glancing down at the red elbow and then back up at Noxsum. And then she stood and began looking from one side of the room to the other, flinching and ducking and swinging her arms about wildly.

"What's going on?" Noxsum asked.

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest, "Don't you know? This is your game."

Clara froze and shook and soon her body seemed to sizzle, a smokey gas floating away from her and drifting into the air before reforming into the ghostly shape of one of the fog boys. He glanced down at himself before looking up at Noxsum and then turned to see Clara's eyes pop open to look at him with a devious smile that gave the Doctor a slightly shiver.

"Oh yeah, I'm back," she told him, and in the nod she gave the boy, he exploded.


	13. A Terrible Thing to Waste

"Was that necessary?" The Doctor asked her as she moved towards him casually.

Clara widened her eyes and she spat, "He wasn't even real!"

"But, honestly!" He exclaimed.

Noxsum gave a great howl and they both turned to him. Clara's lips trembled slightly with anger and when Noxsum sent a bone-chilling blast of cold in their direction, she lifted a hand to shield them from it, watching the half-bubble of ice that spread around them and fanned out into icicles at the edges. And she turned, "So basically he can use anything around him, even the water in the air."

"What?" The Doctor asked plainly.

"When he enters the atmosphere, it disrupts it, and he uses that to create the fog with the particles and imbues it with the properties of this planet for just a few hours, and only over a few kilometers – but the sun melts it away. That's why he comes at night and that's why he's gone by sunrise. But it takes a level of concentration, keeping that field up and having to deal with me, it… sort of took a toll."

Gesturing to himself, the Doctor tells her, "Aren't I supposed to be the one with the exposition and the explanation here?"

Clara cocked her head slightly and gave him a fake pout before sighing, "Yeah, but you're not the one who's been psychically linked to him for the past few hours." She shrugged, "There's a lot of jargon in his head. Thought it might be useful, at least to fill in your blanks, because I know how you are about unanswered questions."

"Yes," he raised a finger, "And I have a few more that can wait until later, but that information will be useful – knowing how it works, we could spread a way to fight against it around the universe so that he's not able to take any more of the children, or at least it'll be a lot harder to."

Clara nods, "And if he can't take the children…"

"The buyers will start to not only dry up, but they'll start to lose wars – they'll start to find blame and eventually…"

"They'll bring the war back here, to the man who _stopped_ _supplying the weapons_."

"Quite tragic."

"Quite just, actually," Clara finished as she deflected an incoming storm of debris from a shattered set of pillars Noxsum had ground up and sent flying in their direction. "Oi you, don't you understand?"

"We're quite done with your game," the Doctor allowed.

Noxsum smiled at Clara and then raised a hand to her, "A mere human child thinks she can match wits with me?"

The Doctor showed off his lit Sonic, "Well, seeing as I'm drawing up all the psychic energy around her, thus amplifying whatever abilities she does have on this planet, which is _admittedly_ impressive… it's completely possible she can…"

"Destroy him," Clara growled

"Defeat him," the Doctor corrected.

"Might take destroying," she suggested.

Dropping a hand over the length of the purple tweed, he replied enthusiastically, "Let's try not to – suit's still relatively clean."

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Clara nodded, and then glanced around Noxsum before moving towards him, taking small pleasure in the fact that he stepped away from her. The Doctor remained at her side as she considered her options before deciding to delve into his mind the way he'd done them. She remained still, and a few feet away Noxsum was like stone, glistening in the lights from above. The Doctor looked from one to the other and swallowed roughly, not quite sure of what she was doing.

"Clara?" He called quietly.

"Clara?" Came the second voice from the entrance, and she turned swiftly to look at her father, her eyes glowing brightly like Noxsum's had.

"Dad," she whispered.

"What are you doing?" The man asked, moving closer to them and eyeing Noxsum as he remained immobile in front of Clara. "Are you doing this?"

She frowned and looked away, then looked back at the frosted face that stared blankly at her. "I could reduce him to dust with a thought," she warned.

"You'd kill him," her father understood.

Clara gave a short nod and steeled herself.

"Is this what he's done to you?" Dave asked, looking to the Doctor. "My sweet little girl, grown up into a killer?"

She shifted back and pleaded, "Dad, he was going to sell the children. Sell them. To their death! Don't you understand?"

"And you," he gestured at her, "You what, you travel around exacting justice on people like him? Murder the murderer?"

"Sometimes that's how it should be," she growled.

"Clara," the Doctor stated calmly, "Clara, don't let him get inside your head. Don't let him infect you with his poisonous thoughts."

She moved back to Noxsum, standing so close she could feel the small breaths he took, and she raised her hands to either side of his head, drawing out his energy and searching his mind for a switch. There had to be a switch. Somewhere in his very essence. Her fingers pressed into his flesh, burning with cold, and then she fell away as Noxsum dropped to the ground and Dave gasped in shock.

He moved to her tentatively, kneeling at her side and helping her sit up. "Look at me," he commanded, and when he looked into the dark eyes that were reddening, he asked, "What did you do?"

Noxsum coughed roughly and then shouted. He swiped at the speckles of frost on the ground and swept them towards him before gripping his head and then reaching out to them. He tried to manipulate the psychic field, but everything remained unmoved.

"_What did you do_!?" Noxsum bellowed at her.

Clara stood with her father and she looked to the Doctor, who was smiling, understanding, and she told her father quietly, "Took his ability."

"You can't do this to me!" Noxsum shouted at her. "You can't do this!"

Hugging her father, Clara walked beside him and sighed when she felt the Doctor fall in step with them as they made their way towards the door. Behind her she could hear Noxsum rising, crying out about the impossibility, about how he'd get revenge, and she turned with a smile and a tap to her father's chest before slipping out of his grasp. She faced Noxsum and watched as he jerked away from her stare, waiting.

_What you've done, you'll do no more, your power's gone away. What you know, what you abhor, slipped from your memory_.

She watched his eyes glaze over as he dropped to his knees and stared, confused, at the ground. Clara moved past her father and the Doctor and onto the darkened land just outside and she inhaled deeply before calling back, "Are you boys coming?"

Dave watched Noxsum as he shifted his hands in front of his face and watched them flex, as though he had no memory of what his fingers looked like, and the idea unnerved him. Turning, Dave moved through the entrance with a glance at the Doctor and then a stern look to his daughter, who was standing peacefully, staring out at the rubble around them, as though it was no effect on her.

"How far back did you erase?" The Doctor asked plainly when he passed Dave and came to stand next to her.

Clara shrugged and looked up at him sadly, "Not sure, possibly too far back."

"I could send a Judoon platoon out," he assured. "Without his psychic abilities, they'll be able to apprehend him and see to it that justice is served."

"Wouldn't the Judoon kill him?"

He considered it before muttering, "I suppose we could just leave him to fend for himself? Hope for the best?"

Dave stepped up and scoffed, "You two aren't seriously considering taking that thing somewhere safer!?"

Clara and the Doctor exchanged a look before the Doctor told Dave, "That thing is currently helpless."

"That thing tried to kill my daughter."

"Settles it then," Clara called, "It was attempted murder on my life, I get to decide the fate of his and seeing as murdering him wouldn't solve a thing…" she trailed and then finished, "Couldn't we take him to Torchwood? Or Unit? One of those other agencies you've mentioned?"

The Doctor smiled and gave a short nod before looking towards the entrance with a sort of pained acceptance in his eyes. "I suppose we could." He sighed. "Know someone at Torchwood, they could pop over in a snap and, possibly, give Noxsum a bit of a make-over."

Clara giggled, hand coming up just under her nose.

Dave watched them, as though this were some shared joke he didn't find amusing, and he followed them to the Tardis where the children were singing and hopping about, led by the ginger floating in the air. The Doctor greeted '_Amelia_' and he joined in and Dave closed the Tardis doors behind them as Clara broke into song and moved into the crowd of gleeful children who danced around her. Dave couldn't decide which part of the whole ordeal made him sick to his stomach the most, so he sat, unnoticed, as they took off.


	14. The Leftovers

It took a lot less time than Dave thought it would to return the children. The Doctor made a list of their home planets and of the dates from which they had been taken and slowly, like a school bus making the rounds of a neighborhood, he dropped them off at their doorsteps to grateful parents who – thankfully – had only been missing their children for mere moments. The Doctor was careful to leave quickly and soundlessly, because he knew he wouldn't be returning all of the children that had been taken, and Dave could read that sorrow on his face with each close of the Tardis doors beside him.

Registering each planet's loss.

Soon they were back on Earth, back at night, stepping out onto the same moist grass they'd left to find neighbors just coming out of their houses to ask one another questions of confusion and shock. Dave waved as they came out from the side of the house, to a couple that stood gripping their daughter tightly between them as they shared their story with a woman three doors down who was carrying her son against her chest.

"It's the same night, only moments later," Dave said quietly.

Clara pointed back, "He did tell you it was a time machine, didn't he?"

She walked with the Doctor to the front door and they went inside and then casually to the dining room table, both sitting comfortably when Dave entered and closed the door behind him. He looked out at them, starting to eat a meal that was, undoubtedly cold, as if nothing had happened and he moved into the living room, drawing the drapes before turning to stare again. The Doctor ate some roast and began working on his mashed potato snowman and Clara playfully slapped his hand before picking up his snowman and eating it, to the Doctor's dismay and Dave stood, eyes widening as he tried to contemplate their behavior.

"What the bloody hell just happened?" He finally shouted.

They straightened. Clara chewed slowly and the Doctor adjusted the napkin on his right knee before he shook his head and told him, "I thought you understood." Then he winced, "You aren't going to start on the punching again, are you?"

Clara turned, "He punched you?"

"In the face," he allowed before adding, "Twice."

"Dad!"

Dave pressed his fingers into his temples. "My daughter's gone insane."

"Dad."

"No," he pointed, "Insane. This man, is this what you do? This is what you do. I saw the way you worked back there, like it was the most normal thing you'd ever done – this is what you do!" Dave pressed his palms into his waist at each side and his face reddened, "You take my daughter out into space and you put her in danger. You're going to get her killed!"

The Doctor stood, slowly, and he laid the napkin down on the table, swallowing the bite still on his tongue, but before he could speak, Clara shouted, "No."

The men looked to her.

"He doesn't _take_ me, dad, _I go with him_. He showed up at my doorstep and he _saved my life_ and in turn he _offered_ me a spot on his spaceship. I chose to go with him. I _choose_ to go with him. I _put myself_ in danger and if that makes me mad, then I am _properly mad_. But it's on me, not him."

Raising a hand slightly, the Doctor conceded, "It might be a little on me."

"You're damned right it is," she hissed at him, before looking at her father, "Do you know why I got caught up in all of this tonight? Because it wasn't him, it was you. I saw, when he was inside my head, I saw what you think of me and it's insulting."

Dave looked stung and he moved forward as Clara stepped away from the table. "Clara…"

"I'm not five anymore!" She reminded. "I'm not the best at being an adult, but I am an adult – I take care of children for a living! Kept this oaf from getting himself killed a few times," she gestured back at the Doctor, who tilted his head slightly and muttered '_Debatable'_ before Clara laughed, "Dad, you were out there – you saw what's out there."

"I saw a planet full of kids who'd been taken from their parents and were being sold," Dave told her plainly, "Is that what you see?"

Raising a finger, the Doctor supplied, "It's not always so glum."

"I went to Yorkshire, England! Space amusement park! A submarine during the cold war! A planet on the far reaches of space that used emotional value as currency. Dad, I…" she trailed, shaking her head, "I can take care of myself, I can be on my own, I'm not a little kid."

Dave stood quietly, lowering his head before looking up at her in defeat, "Gotcha."

"I don't want to be mean about it, but Dad, this is my life," she raised a palm at the Doctor, who jerked slightly before she corrected with an eye roll, "Travelling with the Doctor, saving the world, it's what we do."

"Until you don't," Dave supplied sadly. Then he looked to the Doctor and asked, "There are no assurances you could ever give, Doctor, to make me feel like my Clara is safe in this life."

"No," Clara told him, "He can't."

"_This is why I don't do parents_," the Doctor told the table, poking at his roast.

Dave went to slip his chair out and he sat silently, staring at the food on his plate until Clara finally sat. He swallowed hard and rubbed his forehead, taking a mouthful of potatoes and grimacing, "Seriously, we're gonna eat this cold?"

"We could warm it up," Clara offered.

"That little wand thing with the green light do that?" Dave asked the Doctor as he smiled.

Hugging her father, Clara walked slowly across the lawn, tired and full from dinner and the Doctor watched her with a smile and a sigh of appreciation. Dave caught him by the shoulder and he shifted away quickly, seeing the man chuckle to himself as he nodded.

"Suppose I deserve the fear."

"Must say, there isn't an alien in the universe that compares to a girl's father," he told him honestly.

"I know you can't make any promises," Dave told him quietly, "But she's my Clara, and no matter what she says, she's still my little girl – my everything – and I would do anything…" his voice dropped off and he raised his eyes to the Doctor.

With a nod, the Doctor replied, "When she's travelling with me, she's _my_ Clara and I would do anything."

"I'm gonna want to punch you again one day, aren't I?"

Laughing, the Doctor told him, "Probably, for one reason or another."

Dave gave his shoulder a clap of his hand and a squeeze before he slipped away, closing the door behind him and the Doctor moved over the damp grass to the box that waited. He stepped inside and watched the woman who stood lazily at the console, legs and arms crossed, mouth twisted in contemplation. Hands on either side of the entrance ramp, he nodded up at her.

"Back to the Maitland's?" He asked.

"Yup," she answered, voice barely audible.

"Growing up is never easy," the Doctor told her, "Parents never really let go of that notion that their children aren't children any longer. It's instinctual, I suppose."

Clara turned away from him and he moved up to stand beside her, turning a lever and punching in a few keys on a board. She rubbed at her elbow and touched the back of her head lightly, surely smarting from the lamp – which he wouldn't mention if she didn't.

"What?" She finally asked with a smirk.

"Back on that planet, in that room, you shouldn't have known I was coming, but you did," he began before turning and asking bluntly, "How?"

"I heard your thoughts."

"But that room," he said, face scrunching in confusion.

Clara shrugged. "Stronger than he expected, maybe."

He nodded as she smiled up at him deviously and he chose to leave it. He raised an eyebrow and sighed, "You know, time machine and all, we could take a trip through Galorium – whole skies of oceans floating in a ring of gravity that maintains its suspension over a city of sand."

Clara hugged his arm tightly and then slipped away with a quick giggle and a hesitant nod. "Well, as it is a time machine and all – the Maitland's don't have to know tomorrow became today again."

The Doctor laughed, watching as she stared up at the center tubes that began to pump as the Tardis sprung to life and burst with vworps and whoomps. He met her eyes and knew one day he'd drop her off for good, but today, today she was his and they would walk a sunset under the sea.

End


End file.
